2011 Garden of Love Forever First Class Postage Stamps

The garden was first proposed in 1907 by William Hertrich to Henry Huntington, who had previously had a bad experience with prickly pear plants.?Eventually, Huntington agreed and built a railway to haul in rocks, soil, and plants.?The men collected desert plants from all over North, Central, and South America.

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Today, the 10-acre garden is home to over 5,000 species of succulents (plants with leaves, stems, or roots that store water) and other desert plants throughout 60 landscaped beds.?The 125-year-old tree-like Cereus xanthocarpus, also known as Queen of the Night, is the garden¡¯s largest cactus, weighing 20 tons.

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Throughout the garden¡¯s lower section are a multitude of Yucca filifera, which reach a height of 60 feet.?The upper section of the garden features a greenhouse holding 3,000 fragile succulents that could not survive rain or cold weather.?The garden¡¯s Beaucarnea, or ponytail palms, are some of the oldest-known cultivated specimens and were among the first to be planted in the garden.?

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Famous Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx once called the Huntington Desert Garden ¡°the most extraordinary garden in the world.¡±