Botanicactus S.L. — Attraction in ses Salines

This is a must-do attraction in Mallorca if you are remotely interested in plants or gardens. It's a huge park filled to the brim with all kinds of cacti, succulents, and palms, mostly very old, giant ones that you're unlikely to see outside of South America. It isn't a garden centre, and it isn't a playground.

€11 per person (paid on card) is very reasonable when you consider the size of the park and the volume of plants to look after. I can understand why people think its best days are behind it, but it has that retro charm that modern gardens lack. You can see the hard work in every display. The frequent stone benches will suit elderly people too. There's probably scope to advertise trips here for older people actually who would no doubt enjoy the landscaping too. It's hard to pick just one highlight, but the Tricocereus Pasarana are absolute giants and beyond impressive.

If I was to offer criticism, I'd have liked to have information boards about each species at least once. Many of the plants are repeated (probably cuttings) but sometimes finding names was tough.

With that said, this is a fantastic place to relax in nature and enjoy an exquisite exhibition of arid planting up there with the best...

Botanicactus- truly one of the highlights of our month in Spain! After an e-bike ride to Santanyi Market, we made a detour to kill some time and landed on Botanicactus! An inspiring example of perseverance in horticulture, this wonderland of cacti, transported from all over the world (Arizona, California Peru, South America), tower over you, most more than 100 yrs old! The remarkable man who runs the place told this moving story…built by he and his father in ‘89, completed after only 2 mos., the property was taken out only 4 mos. later by a devastating flood! In 20 min, 400 litres of water fell! Jean Marc Maccario, the Owner, rebuilt and opened a jaw-dropping 2 weeks later, seeking help and finding it….25 trucks in one week, 400 tons of sand, making once flat land into hills!! His father was taken down by the experience and returned back to France, passing away only 2 yrs later in ‘91, never seeing his dream completed. Another storm in ‘92 took out 80% of the big trees and in ‘95 one meter of rain fell, again damaging plants. As a gift when we left, he gave us 2 little cacti.. they are only 6 yrs old… we shared them with the staff at Fontsanta who have planted them on...

This place is probably great when it's running properly, and if you really really like cacti. The plants were very impressive to be fair, but at 11Eur each to enter, it was quite underwhelming.

There are supposed to be some water features but they were all turned off when we went towards the end of June.

In the gardens there is very little shade, so no respite from the heat.

There were some cages, but they were empty when we went. Facilities looked a bit run down, and there was only one member of staff in the whole facility. I saw a dead rabbit next to one of the paths, and some sort of wasp is busy creating nests in the rocks - hopefully they deal with that before it...