LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — A couple of years ago, Frank Marino and his friend Bill started experimenting with planting at Cactus Joe’s on Blue Diamond Road.
Unknowingly planting the seed on what has grown into a larger project.
“I truly didn’t know much about plants, and I’m certainly not well educated in the plant world,” Marino said. “I kind of started off with just bringing the structures in place, the irrigation in place. Sort of building it. Growing just became the natural next step.”
That next step caught the attention of Desert Love, the nonprofit arm of Cactus Joe’s, which brought the guys on to grow more plants that are native to the Las Vegas Valley.
“When I saw that they were so successful with their native plants, that was a conversation I started to have with them, as like, I think that you guys could become a true resource for the community,” Desert Love outreach coordinator Kym Martin said.
Martin told FOX 5 the valley experiences a lot of plant loss during the summer months due to a lot of the plant life not being suited for the desert climate.
“Even though we have filled our city with desert-adapted plants, that doesn’t actually mean that those plants can survive that type of extreme heat,” Martin said.
“Our native plants are adapted to these conditions. They have the genetic code to know what to do when we reach these types of extreme conditions and temperatures.”
Martin attributed that to the use of locally harvested seed, making up 98% of their plant supply.
Multiple greenhouses filled with flora that Martin attests can handle the desert heat, help cut down on water supply, and maintain native wildlife in the valley.
“There are lots of plants that we are growing right here that once they’re established, you could cut the water off to them completely and they would be able to survive just based off of what little rainfall we get,” Martin said.
“When we’re putting in new developments, houses, streets, et cetera, and we’re taking away that habitat, we’re taking away the lifeblood of these insect and animal populations. So the more that we can actually start to bring that back into our landscape, the more that we’re supporting our non-human brothers and sisters that need these plants in order to survive.”
Desert Love Native Plants went public at the start of 2025, hoping to be an educational voice for the community on what can help our local environment thrive.
“Just being able to engage in this conversation, feel really excited about, you know, bringing in, oh, I can bring in a milkweed into my backyard or whatever, so people have been really excited about it,” Martin said.
If you want to learn more about Desert Love, click here.
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