Bringing The Desert Home

A Southern California adventure led to this couple’s love affair— with cactus.

- Thad Orr

I’d never seen a cactus before visiting California,” says Jasmine Fitzwilliam, surveying her garden and the half-dozen species it now contains. “It was eye-opening. We just had to move closer.” Jasmine and her husband, Scott, were on a camping trip to the Salton Sea when she saw a cactus in the wild for the first time; now her garden stands as a monument to that and other trips. “I wanted the garden to feel like Joshua Tree in front and Palm Springs in back,” she says.

Fitzwilliam, owner of Let’s Frolic Together photography (letsfrolictogether.com), and Scott, a tech engineer, didn’t start out as plant lovers with desert-chic style. “I thought I had a black thumb until we moved to California, and I started growing cactus and succulents,” she says. The first succulents she ever grew were jade plants in vintage teacups. “My first one got too big too fast. I felt bad for it because it was bursting out of this little container. So, I had to plant it outside. Then we moved and I was devastated,” she recalled. “That’s when I knew I needed a garden of my own.”