The Cactus Garden was the last work of César Manrique, finished in Lanzarote in 1991. In 1973 the artist had already restored the mill that ornaments the limits of the Centre, with the idea of changing some semiburied volcanic monoliths into the main sculptures of a beautiful garden. And a garden on the island could only be made of cactuses.
On the other hand, The Cactus Garden is an excellent example of how to recover a deteriorated space because it was built on an old quarry of volcanic ashes extraction, also known as "rofe" or "picon" and used by the peasants of Lanzarote to cover the crops and keep the night humidity. This spectacular "botanical garden" contains about ten thousand varieties of cactuses from more than a thousand and four hundred o different species, whose origin is found in America, Madagascar and the Canary Islands, gathered by the late expert botanist Estanislao Gonzalez Ferrer. Nevertheless, the intention of this work is not didactic but esthetical and entertaining as well as all the other space work of the author.
César covered the semi circular ground plan with stone walls and created a sort of amphitheatre where one can admire the different cactuses pefrectly identified with small tags. All this is completed with and all restored, white washed mill, that shows inside the processing of "millo" flour, well known in The Canary Islands as "gofio" and used from time immemorial on the Islands.
From the building point of view, the most remarkable part of the garden is its access, a space that prevents a partial view of the garden but in all its magnificence after passing a small labyrinth of bends. Thus, the visitor gets a wonderful surprise when in front of him appears an imposing spectacle of the stone amphitheatre, vegetation and water. A huge metal cactus of eight metres of height and bright green, shows the arrival to the tourist centre.
The garden itself is surrounded by a sea of cactuses. The area of Guatiza and Mala is the centre of "cochinilla" cultivation on the island. The "cochinilla" is an insect whose female lives as a parasite in a kind of cactus known as "tunera". From the larvae, hand collected, a natural dye, the carmine, used in the textile and cosmetic industries is obtained. This was especially appreciated in the old times, before the discovering of artificial colourings. This Centre of Art Culture and Tourim also has a small restaurant with a terrace overlooking the garden which is ideal for a resta after a long and hard tourist visit, as well as a crafts and gift shop both perfectly integrated in the complex.
