It was to be adjacent to their future mansion, and part of the larger gardens for the Stanford estate.

[1][5] In the early years of the university it was a popular place for courting couples.

The garden now contains approximately 500 cacti and succulents in 58 beds, broadly divided into two major sections.

The Eastern Hemisphere section is planted with aloes, jade plants and other succulents from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the Western Hemisphere section holds cacti native to the Americas.

Plants known to be in the garden in 2016 include torch lily, century plant, golden barrel cactus, cholla cactus, Mojave yucca, Yucca filifera,[7] Yucca schottii,[8] Peruvian apple cactus, soap aloe, flat-flowered aloe, Boojum tree, aeonium, Ponytail palm and Italian cypress.