Glasshouses of the Dr J. S. Sarkaria National Cactus and Succulent Botanical Garden (Cactus Garden)

The garden is the work of Dr Jagdish Singh Sarkaria, a surgeon who became a collector of cacti and other succulents. From 1976 he had sought to have a cactus garden created in Chandigarh: glasshouses were built at the government nursery in Sector 23, but he withdrew from the project for lack of cooperation from the horticulture department. In 1979 he laid out a cactus garden of nearly an acre at the University of Jammu. In 1986 the head of horticulture at the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), which was developing the new township of Panchkula, asked him to build a cactus garden there; land and funding were assured. The stated aims were to preserve and propagate endangered cacti and succulents, Indian succulents in particular, and to assemble about 2,000 species in a first phase.

The propagation glasshouses were built first; HUDA's architects then drew up the other glasshouses and the garden layout. According to the founder's book, the Chief Minister of Haryana opened the garden to the public on 12 May 1992 and was taken round the glasshouses the same day. Other sources date the founding to 1987 and the opening to the public to 2004. The garden was renamed on 23 October 2008 in memory of its founder, who died on 15 August 2004.

According to the 2026 press, the site was in poor condition a year earlier; the district administration launched a restoration led by a curator appointed for the purpose, and the Panchkula Metropolitan Development Authority (PMDA) looks after maintenance. Two large glasshouses were renovated. Closed for about a year, the garden reopened on 13 March 2026, during the spring festival.

The founder's book, which describes the site around 2003-2004, distinguishes six numbered glasshouses. The first four form a group of rectangular houses measuring 10 by 15 m, with decorative sloping roofs and large glass windows on the sides. Drawn up by HUDA's architects, they did not follow the founder's wishes: he wanted a roof of ultraviolet-resistant 'crinkle glass' tinted light blue or green to cut 20 to 30 per cent of summer sunlight, and large water coolers. The fibreglass roofing has since dulled, gaps remain between roofs and walls, the small fans cool poorly and half a dozen panes break after a moderate windstorm, which paradoxically provides cross-ventilation.

The fifth house, built of fibreglass, measures 27.5 by 7.75 m: a dripping water screen cools one end, two exhaust fans stand at the other, and thirteen large benches rest on a frame. The sixth, a large octagonal display house, opens onto a narrow bridge over a water feature, with a sloping landscape and a small waterfall; the founder judges its design unfavourable to cooling, which the pool partly offsets. Three small display houses were added later, one of which came from the founder's home in Chandigarh.

Haryana Tourism counts nine glasshouses (a total consistent with the book's six plus the three small ones), the district website three, and the 2026 press two large houses renovated. The 2025-2026 works may have changed the book's descriptions.

According to the founder's book, each house has its own specialty. The first is devoted to the Asclepiadaceae: Indian carallumas, hard to keep alive because the house has no winter heating, and stapeliads from field collections. The second shelters the haworthias, a collection that covers about 70 per cent of the described species according to the book's table of contents, and a few aloes from South Africa and Madagascar. The third holds Mesembryanthemaceae (lithops), agaves and gasterias; the fourth is given over to mammillarias, of which the garden has about 75 per cent of the described species. The fifth gathers most cactus genera in alphabetical order, including astrophytums, ariocarpus and echinocereus (more than half the known species), about forty euphorbias, crassulas and caudiciform plants such as adeniums. The display house shows an astrophytum nearly forty years old, notocacti, Frerea indica hanging over the water and climbing cacti.

Overall figures diverge: about 1,500 species according to the 2026 press, 2,500 according to the district website, more than 3,500 according to Haryana Tourism. Outdoors, a 28-foot Pachycereus pringlei, grown from seeds brought from Mexico in 1976, is held up by an iron tripod.

The garden occupies Sector 5 of Panchkula, at the northern end of the city park, about 500 m from the town's bus stand and next to the Yavanika Garden; the founder's book places it about twenty minutes' drive from the Chandigarh bus stand and airport. The octagonal house was designed for guided group tours; around 2004, staff members took large groups round it.

The outdoor garden has rockeries numbered I to XIII, a bonsai section donated by the founder and plants for sale; a cactus show is held there every March. Panchkula's spring festival, staged at the Town Park in Sector 5 in March 2026, accompanied the reopening.