This scene greeted me earlier. There were actually four cattle, but only three are visible in this view.
It’s Thanksgiving Day, 2018. And it’s a good thing you guys aren’t turkeys. It’s also a good thing that you are on YOUR side of the fence. Because given your history of not staying in your designated zone, this would ruin everyone’s day….
I always jump at the sound of a heavy hoofed animal moving around outside, mostly because in the past this could easily have meant that it was on the wrong side of my fence, and that I would have to enter Screaming Maniac Mode. So when I heard them lumbering around out there this afternoon, I nervously got up to verify that I would not have to commence with one of my patented World’s Shortest and Angriest Cattle Drives. Fortunately that was not the case. In fact, it has actually been about four entire years now that I have been free of bovine invasions, and that’s been a very good thing. The fence works, in other words.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Even to the cattle. Moooo.
Note how despite the recent rains of October 2018 totaling about 2.5 inches (63 mm) that this cow, along with the others, is still somewhat underweight due to the severe drought that has dominated here for over a year. I posted about this sad situation about two months ago in mid-September 2018, and while the US Drought Monitor has reduced drought by a category of severity thanks to helpful precipitation last month, it takes a long time for vegetation to recover and the formal designations to change. The point being that there still isn’t all that much for them to eat. (And they can’t have my garden or nursery plants. Sorry.)
A bovine with buckhorns on her butt.
The photo above illustrates how animals can be vectors for the dispersal of certain cacti. The spiny burrs clinging to this cow’s distal nether regions are the fruits of buckhorn cholla, Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa. The specific name actually means “spiny fruit” and it is an evolutionary trait developed to assist in seed dispersal.
Other chollas do this same thing, only with vegetative joints instead, since some of those species are sterile triploids who cannot set viable seeds. But C. acanthocarpa is fertile (tetraploid?) and replies primarily upon seed propagation, using clingy spiny fruits to attach to the noses, foreheads, feet, legs, and asses of various desert animals. It works, since buckhorn chollas are very widespread and can reach dense abundances in some places, including my property.
On a related note, I have to rate C. acanthocarpa as my least favorite cholla, and probably my least favorite cactus overall. Some species has to occupy that particular slot, and here’s why I hand it over to this one: These spiny burr-like fruits are genuinely obnoxious! They are impossible to fully clean up, and every single year a new crop of tens of thousands litters my desert, complicating my ability to walk around freely. They are just as sharp and viciously clingy as teddybear or jumping chollas, but sneakier since the heavier joints of the other species don’t migrate as far as the lightweight husks of buckhorn fruits do, and there are simply fewer of them. These dry, spent fruits get everywhere and are more or less impossible to fully avoid whenever I go outside. They last for years in this dry climate, and cleanup is more or less impossible. At least with teddybear/jumping chollas and their fallen pieces, you can gather up and dispose of the handful of joints once every year or two and be done with it for a good long while.
This is an example section of garden that I decided to clear of buckhorn chollas on Sept 19, 2014. I was seeking places to start adding additional plants of my own choice a bit farther away from my house, and this one about 100 yards away near the driveway was a logical place to start. As you can see, I’ve already installed agaves, saguaros, and other plants here in between preexisting buckhorns, but I wanted it more open and cleaner to walk and work in.
Additionally, high population densities of buckhorn chollas provide food and shelter for rodent pests, including pack rats (which thrive where chollas are abundant), ground squirrels, and cactus mice, all of which take a toll on eating my other more desirable plants. The rodents feed upon the seed pods, extracting the seeds and leaving the spiny husks intact. These lightweight husks then blow, or are washed by rains and flooding, all over the place. Areas once free of them can become contaminated again by wind and water movements, and then get stuck in my shoes, legs, gloves, tires, and the feet of any visiting dogs that people bring out here. It’s really quite maddening.
It’s just choked with too many chollas and unsightly piles of dead woody debris. Many of the chollas are aging and decrepit and half-dead anyway. Let’s just clear the slate of them and improve the overall look, shall we?
I thought I liked buckhorn cholla much more when I first started living here in 1999. Now I at best try to tolerate them. It didn’t take me more than a few years to decide that having thickets of buckhorn cholla that required me to walk 50 or 100 feet out of my way to go around was too many. They occupied about 35% of my gardening space in some areas, space better served for my purposes with more interesting, less mean-spirited plants. So I began a program of selective thinning and targeted removal to open up the space and reduce the annual litter crop of annoying fruit husks. I needed to remove habitat and food sources for the rodent pests, and I wanted to be able to dig a hole without puncturing my boots, knees, and hands. Truth be told, once I got rid of about 90% of them in my main garden areas and close to my house, I didn’t miss them. At all. I planted better cacti and other succulents instead. Good choice.
A few weeks later, I took another follow-up photo of the scene immediately above on October 7, 2014. It’s much better, isn’t it? At least to my human eye. I understand that to small animals needing shelter a pile of dead debris is a great home, but there is a million acres of untouched desert right there for them to live in instead. I’m claiming this spot. Besides, it’s not like I will leave it barren – I’m planting plenty of new, different plants anyway. I did leave a few select, reasonably vigorous and healthy chollas behind. Despite the prickly mess they create….
I also generally leave any living native desert shrubs alone to continue growing – I don’t scalp off most healthy plants, preferring instead to leave these hardy, xeric natives in place to add texture and interest to the landscape. If it’s dead or dying, and unkempt looking, I tend to remove it. If it’s not, I don’t, although I sometimes prune or cut to the ground and allow fresh new growth to rejuvenate the plant.
All that said, I still have a policy of leaving buckhorn chollas alone to do what they do in terms of ecosystem services in zones farther away from my gardens. They are, after all, attractive enough (at a safe distance) and they do also provide that aforementioned food and habitat for other animals that I like better. The flower colors are pretty, ranging from yellow to coppery-orange to dark red, and the skeletons of their wood after they die are useful decorative items and fuel for desert campfires. The plants themselves are also a good barrier to the cows (and deer) that might try to get past the fencing, so they even have utility there too as a reinforcing barrier to the wire. It’s those damn dry spiny fruits I hate! I just don’t want to walk, water, and work around them when there are better plants to garden with.
Aren’t love/hate relationships fun? 
