As a mineral dealer and collector, Daniel Trinchillo appreciates the beauty of nature’s treasures that come out of the ground.
When New Jersey resident Trinchillo is in town to run his show during the winter Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase, he spends time with his other naturally beautiful collection: his cactus and succulent garden.
It’s not an ordinary garden to succulent collectors in the know. It’s possibly one of the finest collections anywhere.
“My only regret for him is that he doesn’t have more space,” says Gene Joseph, co-owner of Plants for the Southwest. “Then it would be the best botanical garden in the Southwest.”
As it is, Joseph praises it as an example of how to create a dramatic cactus garden in a small space.
The tiny strip of yard fronting a 1910 remodeled home in El Presidio Historic District is packed with desert plants. They include
- several cardón, a multi-armed cactus from Baja California.
- the gnarly crested golden barrel cactus.
- a boojum seedling, a cousin of the ocotillo.
- the tree-like Cereus peruvianus f. monstrose.
- a couple of palo blanco, which look similar to palo verde trees, but shed papery white bark.
- a massive golden barrel cactus cluster.
- aloe dichotoma, an African aloe tree.
They are crammed in open spaces among large boulders shipped from Prescott. A narrow path winds through the garden, giving a visitor the feel of hiking along a plant-covered outcrop.
Part of what makes Trinchillo’s garden special is the plants he handpicks for display.
“He’s into plants that have a lot of drama and architecture,” says Joseph. “He really wants them to be picture perfect.”
Trinchillo agrees that what he looks for is the best example of unusual species or deformed versions.
I like oddities,” he says, “as well as size as well as quality. Aesthetically, the plant has to look good.” That means no blemishes, scars or dying parts.
“If something doesn’t do well in a year or two, I’ll take it out,” he says.
A professional mineral dealer since 1991, Trinchillo, owner of Fine Minerals International, worked the gem show for some years when he decided to buy a house in 2001 for his annual show.
“I fell in love with cactus,” he recalls. “I had been to the (Arizona-Sonora) Desert Museum. That’s what I found inspiring.”
As he learned more about cactus, Tranchillo gravitated to specimen plants, individuals that are so dramatic they become focal points in a landscape.
“Mineral people love beauty in all things,” Trinchillo explains. “They can appreciate fine furniture, paintings, porcelain. Specimen-quality cactus is what attracted me.”
He thought it would make an ideal setting for his building.
“I wanted to have this impactful entrance to our show,” he says.
With the help of a Phoenix landscaper, Trinchillo had installed young cardóns, agaves and barrels and an aloe dichotoma with a canopy of succulent leaves.
He arrived the next year to see snow on the ground. “I thought that was so cool, amazing,” he says. “Little did I know that a lot of plants were sensitive to the drops in temperature and the cold.”
His prized aloe died, as did other plants. After some other losses, he hired Arcadia Landscape Inc. to provide regular maintenance.
Over the years, crews have carefully groomed the plants. When freezes are predicted, they cover sensitive succulents with tents in which heaters are placed to keep the plants warm. Columnar cacti get hats of plastic plant containers covered in foam.
Kevin Killmer, Arcadia’s operations manager, keeps a manual on the care of every plant in the garden.
Killmer has made suggestions to the collection. So has Joseph, whose nursery supplies some of the spectacular specimens.
That’s why a hardy yucca takes the space of Trinchillo’s beloved dead aloe, a young organ pipe cactus is squeezed into a corner next to the porch steps and several Agave parryi v. truncata fill small spaces.
Trinchillo sees his garden only five weeks out of the year, in the dead of winter. “I have never seen my garden bloom,” he says.
Nonetheless, it’s a celebrated homecoming when he comes back for the show. “I’m the parent who comes once a year, so I can see the growth, see the changes.
“It takes me somewhere outside of everything else I do. It’s very relaxing.”
