Twenty minutes earlier the plissé mud partitions and souks of Marrakesh’s historic medina, miles earlier the 1920s-era Guéliz neighborhood and its new Yves Saint Laurent museum, lies a vast no-man’s land of cellphone towers and filth. Then, on a chain-link fence that appears to protect nothing, a hand-lettered signal pointing down a rocky path: ‘‘Cacti.’’
Cactus Thiemann, a 17-acre cactus nursery, rises from the dry mud like a vegetable yard on Mars or a Ridley Scott fever dream. Stadium-size swaths of every alternative — increased than 150 in all — stand in wonderful rows, stretching into the horizon. The yard was primarily based contained in the mid-1960s by Hans Thiemann, a then-38-year-old agricultural engineer in Bremen, Germany, whose household had for generations nurtured a ardour for the slow-growing spiny succulents. He’d grown weary of cultivating them beneath greenhouse circumstances, and the Moroccan desert was helpful to Europe — Thiemann had visited the painter Jacques Majorelle there in 1950 to convey as soon as extra specimens from the Jardin Majorelle, later purchased by Saint Laurent— so it was to Morocco he acquired proper right here.
Magda and Roselinde Thiemann
Since Thiemann’s lack of life in 2001, the operation has been run by his widow, Fatima, who lives on the property in an enormous residence the colour of pink sand, and their grownup daughters, Magda and Roselinde. They wander every single day among the many many many low-growers: Astrophytum capricorne, which could most likely be mistaken for a groundhog devouring a buttercup, and Echinocereus pectinatus, which resembles a bushel of small rosy penises. They measure the tall varieties, various which develop solely two inches a yr, together with Cephalocereus senilis, which appears to be like as if a giant hairbrush that has been used on an Afghan hound, and Neoraimondia herzogiana, a Bolivian cultivar which can be a favourite among the many many many firm — often panorama designers and horticulturists — due to, Magda says, ‘‘it appears to be like as if these contained in the Spaghetti Westerns that you just merely slice into for water to steer clear of dropping the hero’s life.’’ The oldest and tallest is a perception-bending specimen of Pachycereus pringlei that Thiemann launched over on the boat with him as a mere sliver. At 26 ft tall, it’s not within the market at any worth.
Yearly, additional individuals uncover their means, someway, to this lunar panorama, so the sisters are planning a small cafe. ‘‘Easy and wild,’’ Magda says. Only a few seats and a few shade, a spot to sip tea and stare into the thorny abyss.
