Saguaros in the Backyard

Saguaro Cactus. Pronounced “suh-WAH-ro”; formal name: Canegiea Gigantea, named for Andrew Carnegie, whose Carnegie Institution established the Desert Botanical Laboratory in Tucson in 1903.

When Chris first took me to Tucson, we drove down from the North where we had been visiting the Grand Canyon. I remember so clearly coming over a hill and through one of the desert passes and suddenly there, all around me, were the saguaros! I felt like I had stepped into a John Ford Western and immediately started looking for stagecoaches and teams of horses racing across the terrain!

Here were the cacti that “define” the classic American Western films, the iconic symbols of adventure, discovery and survival! It’s no wonder the western states from Texas to Utah unilaterally use the saguaro as a symbol in advertising and tourist attractions, even though the cactus is native only to southern Arizona, Baja (California) and parts of the Sonoran Desert in Mexico – over time, and thanks in large part to Hollywood, it’s become the iconic image of the Wild West!

This saguaro is about 25 feet tall (a baby!) towering over me in the bright blue Arizona sunshine! These majestic pillars of the desert can grow from 40-60 feet tall, live up to 200 years, and can hold over a ton of water! In fact, they visibly expand as they soak up water and contract as the water is consumed for survival – their girth can vary up to 25% over the course of a year!

Both Chris and his Dad have tried to grow saguaro at home, a dauntingly slow and tedious task that has very little pay-off, since saguaros are notoriously slow to grow – if they survive, our great-grandkids might be able to plant them in our backyard one day (an idea that makes us both smile, although last I checked, our saguaros were less than an inch tall!) The iconic “arms” of the saguaro begin to grow when the plant is about 15 feet tall and around 75 years old!! According to the Sonoran Desert Museum (a wonderful source of information related to southwestern desert wildlife and landscape), depending on how long the cactus lives, they can grow as many as 50+ arms!

The Arizona State Wildflower is the Saguaro Cactus Flower, a creamy white bloom around a yellow center, which blooms in May and June. Saguaro flowers bloom at night and last through the next midday; each flower blooms only once for less than a day and then closes forever (somewhat tragic in my point of view!) Pollinated flowers produce a red fruit at the base of the bloom that can contain thousands of seeds, a great source of survival for any number of desert creatures! Juice from the fruit is used by Native Americans to make wines, jams and jellies, and saguaro wine is ritually consumed during the Native American summer rain ceremonies.

We’re hoping to have at least one saguaro in our yard when we live in Tucson, but the saguaro are a protected species, so we can’t just go out into the desert, dig one up and replant it in our back yard! A permit is required to dig up a saguaro and proper documentation is provided when you purchase a saguaro cactus from a reputable dealer (just like buying a car!) And they’re not cheap! The bigger the cactus and the more arms it has, the more expensive it will be – full grown saguaros can go for many thousands of dollars! On top of that, saguaros can weigh up to several tons, depending on the size, which is yet another reason to have a professional “cactus retailer” deliver your saguaro to the backyard!