Cacti Guy
Steve Delaney loads a rescued cactus into a pickup truck for relocation in Pima Prickly Park in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. (Image courtesy of Steve Delaney)
Rescuing cacti is not exactly a walk in the park. “A six-foot saguaro can be 75 years old and weigh 300-plus pounds,” says Steve Delaney, ’81 LAS. “For an untrained rescuer, it’s like wrestling a bear.”
As a Cactus Rescue Program volunteer for the Tucson [Ariz.] Cactus and Succulent Society (TCSS), Delaney often ends up walking in Pima Prickly Park in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. There, he and a crew of 100-plus fellow volunteers find safer havens for local succulents that stand in the way of the area’s burgeoning housing developments.
The former pharmaceutical scientist discovered “cacti relo” in 2019 when he needed to clear land for his own retirement digs.
Delaney and a Carnegiea gigantea. (Image courtesy of Steve Delaney)
“Saguaros, fishhook barrels, hedgehogs, yucca/sotol, ocotillos and smaller cacti—such as pincushions and night-blooming cereus—are carefully dug up and tagged by the rescuers,” Delaney says. From there, the native plants get nestled in special slings developed by the rescue program and, in some cases, strapped to aluminum ladders for support. Their taproots can measure up to two feet long. Once harvested, the cacti are taken by pickup truck to new locales. “Half of the rescued population is sold for club support,” he says. The other half goes to club members, many of whom cultivate their own cactus gardens.
Succulents are big business in Arizona, with heftier cacti selling for as much as $3,000. Delaney says that commercial and/or guerilla harvesters have been known to “wrap a chain about an ocotillo base and pull it out using a truck.”
The TCSS rescue crew, however, treat their cacti with TLC while carefully protecting their structure and roots. Delany’s most productive five-hour harvest with a digging partner netted 40 ocotillos. “The ground was friendly,” he says. “No jack hammers required!”
TCSS has been finding new homes for old friends for a quarter century, with an impressive 130,000 plants rescued. Delaney sees the work as the ultimate eco-friendly outdoor activity. “Fresh air, endless viewsheds, great comradery, exercise and doing our part in the Sonoran Desert,” he says. What could be more natural?
