text: pampas2palms: The Wild West on a Sunny Sunday
  Last Sunday Jim and I made a visit to Pioneertown - not exactly a horticultural mecca but I hope you'll find some interest and enjoy the pictures. Pioneertown is about a 40 minute drive from Palm Springs up into the High Desert of the Yucca Valley near Joshua Tree National Park. The day was lovely but in the winter, this area gets snow! Read on - plant pics at the end.
  This fascinating little community started life in the 1940's as a live-in Wild West motion picture set. many Westerns and TV shows were filmed here. Today it has a population of around 350 and consists of a few modern dwellings, a number of the older buildings which are inhabited, several tourist shops and some remaining fake movie set buildings such as the Sheriff's office and town jail.
  There was one rather spartan 'garden', adorned with a variety of 'objet trouvé', reminding me of Derek Jarman's iconic garden on the Kent coast. (Chad - thanks for the correction - should have checked my facts rather than relying on my dodgy memory!) Everywhere there were huge specimens of Yucca brevifolia the native Joshua tree and big patches of flowering cactus. At least some living things to keep me interested!