[music]
(Steve) We're going to start with
a little Charlie Brown saguaro
that we're going to take to Waterman
and then the second one is about three and a half foot.
It's about on the upper end of his range
and it's just beyond that palo verde at the property line.
And we're going to go
just a little bit west of that and we'll find that plant.
All right, let's do it.
(Dick) When cactus people close their eyes
and think about what heaven looks like, this is it.
Starting in 1999,
we started working with developers as they have
an area that they want
to develop in their homes, schools , et cetera.
They call upon us to come in prior to them
doing any blading,
and we rescue all the small
plants, the plants that they would never consider taking out.
We also take out any saguaros that they'll let us have.
(Steve) So now we just wind the maypole.
(Donna) Let's go this way over by the cholla maybe.
We have to get permits from the Arizona
Department of Agriculture and we have to get tags.
(Grace) My grandparents bought this property in 1946,
it was originally 160 acres and they built one home
towards the west side of the property.
But then one day my grandmother counted twelve cars on the road
and that was just too much.
So instead of relocating, they built a second
bigger home further back on the property in 1966.
My dad and his brother were both born in Tucson
and grew up on this property, and my sister and I
were both born in Tucson and grew up on the property.
So it's been three generations of us to live here.
(Claire) I don't think most kids have this much space to run free
so there's definitely
lots of exploring the desert building forts.
(Grace) We've definitely had to run from javelina a time or two.
The property is being sold to a developer of homes.
So what you see around us all this desert is
going to be turned into ranch style homes.
It's going to be a big neighborhood.
But we are keeping five acres of it.
Every time we've come back on the property
It has changed so much and more and more plant
life has been cleared out and it looks completely different.
And it's hard to look at
because it's just not the same as when we were little,
and we know that it's going to be unrecognizable pretty soon.
So we're thankful to have pictures and memories
as it is going to change quite a bit.
[power tool noise]
(Steve) All right, so we're right here. Okay.
And so we're doing this narrow.
It's going to be a sewer line. Gotcha.
The boundaries are not well marked.
OK, you're going to have to give it your best guess.
And then once you take
the plant, remove the flag and so everybody else doesn't
come out of there looking for it .
I coordinate the training out in the field.
I have about six folks that work with me.
They're designated to monitor the boundaries, help people
with the technique
of rescuing the plants so that the plants will
have the best chance of survival after transplant.
They■re instructors, as well as safety enforcers, so they help
people know how to do all of this without any injuries.
(Dick) All the rescue people know that
if I don't bleed on a rescue, it's not very good.
We're not afraid of getting stuck by spines.
We enjoy it. We're crazy.
There's no getting around it.
(Steve) This one is so light that Dick normally
throws this over your shoulder and walks out.
(Dick) My favorite cactus, of course,
is the queen of the night the Peniocereus greggii.
Sometime in June, it starts producing a flower.
Fairly large blooms at night attracts moths.
It's a fascinating plant, and it really just excites
everybody because of its beauty when it blooms and it's
its lack of of anything when it's not in bloom.
(Steve) They're very hard to spot.
They look like a dead stick.
[power tool noise]
So the first part is like a little archeology dig here.
Oh, here it is. See that how I scratch it a little bit right
there, the dirt.
They'll excavate all around it
and then they'll come in from the side and
they'll carefully brush the dirt off of the tuber.
That looks like a little elongated turnip.
And then the connective top is so fragile
that then when they do take it out of the ground,
they'll carry it like a baby back to make sure
that it doesn't break away the tuber in the top.
This year, they bloomed over about a three week period.
In one microclimate
they'll all bloom at the same time.
That alone is enough for an excuse to get out and walk
in the desert at night and have a margarita after
and just enjoy June in Tucson.
[music]
(Steve) Shall we?
(Donna) So it's really cool because I'm looking at these
saguaros in my pickup truck this morning and saying,
Hey, guys, wait until you see what your new home
is going to look like. And it really is spectacular.
The saguaros that
we rescued at the construction site, we drove them out here.
We're out at the Waterman restoration site and we're
planting the three saguaros that we rescued.
And then they have new homes
and they have a spectacular view of the mountains.
It's really a lot of fun to plant them.
And the other thing is that
we can come visit them because this is public land
(Dick) We are the largest
local cactus and succulent society in the world,
and we've rescued over 120,000 plants in the last 22 years.
(Steve) There's a good number of people that just come out
and want to make sure that
all native plants we can get find a home.
We don't want to see them bulldozed.
We want to see them
transplanted somewhere in the Tucson area and saved.