The Huerto del Cura is a botanical garden located in the city of Elche, in the province of Alicante, (Spain).
The garden is about 13.000 m² densely populated with palm trees. It is home to about 1000 palm trees, mostly date palms.
In addition to palm trees, there are also Mediterranean orchard plants such as pomegranate, azofaifos, orange, fig and lemon trees, to which subtropical plants and a collection of cacti have been added over the years.
This orchard (in Elche a plot of land with palm trees is called an orchard) owes its name to the chaplain José Castaño Sánchez, who was its owner until 1918.
It is the most important garden of the Palmeral de Elche, declared a World Heritage Site in 2000.
The Huerto del Cura, of only 13,361 m², was born with its current extension when in 1876, the farmer Andrés Castaño Peral bought a plot of the orchard where he lived as a tenant from Juan Espuche.
On the death of the latter, the orchard was inherited by his sons, the owner being the second of them, the chaplain José Castaño Sánchez, born on 12 May 1843. This is why the orchard was known as the Chaplain Castaño's orchard, later to be definitively called Huerto del Cura (the Priest's Orchard).
The popularity of this orchard began in 1873 with an unusual phenomenon, as in that year many offspring began to sprout from the trunk of a male palm tree at a height of 1.80 m. At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of offspring was reduced to seven, which left the palm tree as it is today.
In 1894, Elizabeth de Wittelsbach, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Hungary and more popularly known as Sissi, arrived in the port of Alicante. She travelled to Elche, where she was shown the orchard. The empress was deeply impressed when she saw the palm tree and told its owner (Chaplain Castaño) that the palm tree had a power and strength worthy of an empire, advising him to give it a name. After this visit, the chaplain thought about what had happened, and began to call it, in his honour, the Imperial Palm Tree. Thus began the tradition of dedicating the palm trees in the Orchard to some of the most illustrious visitors.
From 1940 to 1958 it was owned by the erudite intellectual from Elche, Juan Orts Román, who wrote works on the Palm Trees, the Palm Grove and the Mystery of Elche. Thanks to his efforts, in 1943 this garden was declared a National Artistic Garden. On the same day that the proclamation of the Alhambra and the Generalife as National Artistic Gardens appeared in the BOE (Official State Gazette), the same award was given to the Palmeral de Elche.