The bigger saguaro, tall cholla and barrel do have shallow root systems and one good tap root. They fan out anchor like an upside down umbrella, shallow, to catch the rain. This is also stability. They grow slow, gathering balance over time. They also grab rock surface and coleche, the hard clay stuff. The saguaro have a tough durable accordion like skeleton to support the weight. Barrel cactus often lean and eventually fall over as they take up residence easily. The saguaro need a mother plant to shelter it until it is established, five to fifteen years. They grow so slow that most get eaten or destroyed, then a few survive for a couple of hundred years. People cut roads next to saguaros or put parking lots around them, cutting off half or more of the stabilizing root structure and they end up with crushed cars.
There is a protected species of prickley pear down by Green Valley. There is peyote, and other small ones in select regions that are endangered. The saguaro are protected by city ordinance, and people loving them, so they must be moved along with major vegetation. There are now ordinances that require set backs from waterways, for the whole ecosystem to travel and flourish and wildlife to intermingle across distance, for diversity over time. CC&R's are parts of well done subdivisions. Even the evil developer had placed restrictions on the million dollar lots giving only plots to build on, is saving most of the area as natural. The thing is, the flat build-able places are meadows, which are different pieces of the ecology, magnets for life and the rest sucks to build on nearly solid granite. This one is evil because they slipped in and stole a big chunk of peoples park and restrict public accesses to our lands with high dollar attorney's fees, and favors to unscrupulous city officials.
There is an industry that moves saguaros, but it is a sham. They can take only the younger ones, which they then squeeze and mutilate, chopping off the root system, so that most don't survive. No one realizes that the transplant doesn't work or is shabby because it takes so long for a saguaro to show signs. There was once a huge beloved saguaro that was in the middle of a planned roadway in Oro Valley. People wanted to redirect the road around it. Forty thousand dollars was spent by politicians to mitigate the public outcry, moving it with great unprecedented care. Many didn't trust that. They moved it to slightly higher ground, a very slight knoll. It caused lightening to strike it and it tumbled down. Saguaros are loved like the oldest largest trees that people grow up with in their communities. The name means people. They have personalities to project onto. They are filled with water and easily respected. There is protection in peoples hearts. Few see them as just another plant, but these cold people can be very destructive of something that is precious and doesn't exist easily.
We're heading up into Utah for the Rainbow Gathering, Zion, Bryce, etc. next week during a 2014 adventure.
Jbee
