Cactuses masquerade as Christmas trees

Steve Bowdoin can’t hide presents under the teddy-bear cholla cactuses, at least not without getting pricked. He can’t hang bulbs on the golden barrels or top the agave plants with stars. The 32-foot-tall saguaro cactus nicknamed “Grandpa” is magnificent, but it can’t anchor a family room on Christmas morning.

That’s OK.

Unlike the pines and Douglas firs bedecking most casinos and malls here -- including a 109-foot wonder that’s among the nation’s tallest -- Bowdoin’s holiday display actually embraces the arid Mojave: three acres with 300 species of desert plants wrapped in half a million twinkling lights.

This year marks the 16th annual Chocolate Wonderland (back to the chocolate in a bit), a free spectacle whose eschewing of thirsty Christmas trees is, in this town, unusual. Though other parched cities adore ornamented cactuses -- “Christmas in Arizona is being stuck by cactus needles,” a Phoenix paper observed -- many Nevadans haven’t reconciled their traditions with the desert.

Lots of them have come from places where it rains more than 4 inches a year. (Los Angeles gets almost four times the precipitation.) So, despite years of drought, this suburb flaunts emerald yards and a section named Green Valley, though “Brown Valley” would be more in keeping with the natural landscape.

As for seasonal decor? “All the Christmas displays look like they’re from the Midwest or other places,” said June Harwood, 45, of Las Vegas, who grew up in Ohio.

But amid the gas stations and bowling alleys south of Las Vegas is the Ethel M Chocolates factory. Its cactus garden -- the handiwork of an eccentric billionaire -- is a model of desert landscaping. From mid-November to Jan. 1, it shimmers with Christmas lights.

The teddy-bear cholla cactuses are a blazing white; the golden barrels, yellow. The agave plants glow with colors spanning the Crayola box. “Grandpa” saguaro is draped in icy blue.

Lights drip from mesquite branches, and a mescal bean tree blinks, in pink, to “Jingle Bells.” Inflatable penguins wobble next to the least spiny species. The tangle of lights somehow tweaks your depth perception; it looks like the cactuses go on and on.

“We live in a desert, right? What better way to celebrate it?” said Harwood, who works for a slot machine manufacturer.

“I think a lot of desert plants have a lot of character,” said her husband, Ken, 55, who cites the ungainly Joshua tree as an example. “It’s so ugly!”

But the cactus garden is not. It was created by the late Forrest Mars Sr., the father of M&Ms. After he moved to Henderson, he launched gourmet Ethel M Chocolates and, for a time, lived in an apartment above the factory. A balcony outside of his living room -- now a conference room -- overlooked desert plants from around the world.

When Bowdoin transferred here from a Mars Inc. plant in Texas, where he helped develop the blue raspberry Skittle, he relished the small oasis. At home, he tended to his own Arizona barrel cactuses and desert birds of paradise.

“That’s just as beautiful as a green yard,” he said.

So after he retired as operations manager in 2007, he lobbied to return to Ethel M as a gardener. That’s no small task. The cactus garden is a significant marketing tool, drawing thousands of gawkers from the holidays through the spring bloom. Afterward, many visitors pop into a factory store selling $20 boxes of liquor-filled candies and $5 hot chocolate.

Its first year, Chocolate Wonderland was basically a few lights on the cactuses near the store entrance. It grew and grew. Now, Bowdoin and three fellow gardeners start prepping the display, which changes annually, in September.

In recent years, the garden began switching to LED lights. Colors are partly chosen to reflect the cactuses’ flowers -- thumb-like red barrel cactuses, for instance, are wrapped in red.

The gardeners hang lights loosely, so fierce winds won’t tear the plants, and forgo baling wire and ties. Tree lights are arranged with floral tape, not staples, to keep from damaging the bark. In the end, Bowdoin’s hands resemble a well-used pin cushion, but he doesn’t mind.

On weekends, as many as 3,000 people a night snap pictures on sandstone and admire tumbleweed-like Nevada ephedra and blind prickly pear cactuses.

Parents shoo their children away from pinchers: “If you touch it, no chocolate!”

Kids zip down pathways, shouting: “I want a picture with the blue tree! The blue tree!”

Inside the store, there’s an artificial Christmas pine, but it’s rarely used as a photo backdrop.

ashley.powers@latimes.com