Here’s a couple of scenes to get us low-elevation desert dwellers into a holiday mood:

Photos: A. Shock, Three Star Owl.  Both were taken after a snowstorm, Tonto National Monument, above the Tonto Basin, AZ.  The top photo overlooks Roosvelt Lake and the Sierra Ancha Mountains.

It was leaning, but not that much.  On Thanksgiving morning while we had breakfast (E, the M, and me), it fell with a huge thump from no particular direction. Later, E found the saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea): under the back mesquite, lying split like a toppled Doric column on top of beloved cax and sux, some in the ground, some in pots on shelves. Its weight had splintered a 2×12 pine shelf, cracking it nearly in two.  It popped a mature barrel cactus out of the ground roots and all, and launched pots in the air, so that they landed in uprooted piles.  It took all three of us to dig out the victims pinned under the wreckage, embedded in green flesh, impaled on spines.  Lots of crushed plants, but only two pots lost and only one hand-made one; a small clay “miracle”.  Still, it was gruesome, and the saguaro, although probably 50 years old, wasn’t anywhere near the end of its expected life span.  It hadn’t even grown arms yet, like some of the older saguaros in this mature desert neighborhood.

Pictures tell the story best.

In order to remove the plants from under it, we had to prop the saguaro incrementally up onto cinder blocks, where it now lies abandoned like an old car, awaiting decomposition, its length unnaturally separated from the soil below.  Sadly, as damaged as it is, it looks very whole even lying there, and a few of its roots, still buried in the damp desert soil, are so far keeping it green and living, a support system that won’t bring life back.

Here is a photo of a lovely Red barrel cactus in Miss Thang’s garden.

The barrel is happy where it is, and is growing quickly and healthily.  Unfortunately, we’ve had a Bermuda Grass invasion nearby, and despite E‘s manual, non-toxic efforts to control the grass, it’s spread up to the Red Barrel.  It was bad enough when the awful spikes of grass began to come up around the fat base of the cactus, but look closely — at about 3 o’clock on the shadowy right side of the barrel, there is a double spike of insidious grassy green poking out between the cactus’s ribs, inside the cage of the spines.  That is a Bermuda grass shoot growing out through the side of the barrel!  The horrid monocot grew around and under the cactus, and sent up sharp new shoots through its flesh and out its skin about 4 inches up from the soil line, where it’s now established itself contentedly at the expense of the barrel’s structural integrity.  I imagine roots spreading through the interior of the cactus, sucking moisture without remorse.

If you can stand it, here is a close-up, click on the image to enlarge it.

It turns the stomach.