Visited the Denver Botanic Gardens and saw a cactus that looked totally fake

I was walking through the greenhouse there last weekend, you know, the big one with the desert plants. I stopped at this one barrel cactus that was just a perfect, bright green ball, no marks or anything. It looked like plastic, the kind you'd buy at a craft store. I actually reached out to touch it (gently, I promise) to check, and it was real and spiky. The label said it was a Ferocactus, about 15 years old. It got me thinking about how some plants are so neat and tidy they don't seem real, while others are all wild and messy. What's the most 'fake-looking' real plant you've ever come across in a garden?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy82023d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I totally get that! But honestly, I've always thought the really weird, messy ones look more fake. Like those succulents that grow in a perfect spiral, they seem so unreal they could be from a sci-fi movie.

jennyh5522d ago

Reach out to touch a plant to check if it's real and you know you've found a good one. I mean, some of those succulents look like they were made in a factory. @nancy820 has a point about the spirals, those are wild, but I saw a lithops once that looked exactly like a little pebble with a crack in it. I stared at it for five minutes waiting for it to move or something. Nature is just showing off at that point, making things that look like cheap plastic or weird art projects.