A quick note to start out with: For anyone not wanting to read this entire long discussion, a quick list of main points to know for each of the three primary types of plants under discussion (yuccas/Joshua trees, ocotillos, and saguaros/cacti) can be found at the end of this article. Scroll all the way down to the bottom to find those numbered lists and summaries. The middle text and photos is for those wishing to obtain a detailed understanding of how the care and culture of all three of these large desert plant categories should be managed. Thank you.

One question I get all the time is, “How much should I water my new cactus/ocotillo/Joshua tree/yucca/etc?” This is an impossible question to answer simply, because there is no one single answer to it. Gardeners, landscapers, and horticulturists all over the world get versions of this question quite often, and there are billions of answers, each one unique to the plant, its owner, and the place on earth where it grows. However it is possible to distill down a complicated answer into several interlocking principles, and teaching people about the basic logic behind these principles is what will enable the new owner of a plant to figure out how to best take care of their plant.

My personal focus in horticulture and botany is upon desert plants, and specifically large succulent and semi-succulent plants. I have specialized in growing, transplanting, and caring for this particular group of desert plants for around 30 years (almost 24 of them in Arizona to date) and that’s why I will be focusing mainly upon these. This article primarily discusses yuccas (genus Yucca) and Joshua trees (itself a type of yucca, Yucca brevifolia), ocotillos (Fouquieria splendens), and saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) because there is a ton of misinformation and lack of clear information about how to establish them in a desert garden. I’ll also mention other succulents at times since these plants are often grown together in collections and landscapes, and discuss a few xeric but nonsucculent plants like creosote bushes (Larrea tridentata) in contrast to succulents. I am also most concerned with how to establish larger plants grown in outdoor settings, and less about small potted seedlings whether kept in indoor collections or not. I need to narrow the focus of the discussion, and this post is going to be long enough regardless.

WHAT PLANTS EXPERIENCE WHEN HUMANS RELOCATE THEM

The first thing to understand is that transplanting larger desert plants, especially bare-rooting them first, is extremely challenging for them to survive. Many people mistakenly think that just because bare-rooting can be done, and that a percentage of the plants manage to survive it, that it must be simple and easy and that the plants themselves hardly notice what happened to them. This could not be less true! Large desert plants are inherently difficult to transplant successfully, and there are numerous ways in which factors can combine to cause them to die. Think about it: These are plants that survive for decades, or centuries, in tough and dry environments, rooted firmly in one place for their entire lifespan. They are not supposed to move! Humans are the ones who force them into this highly stressful and unnatural process by digging and usually bare-rooting them and putting them into a new spot. They are simply not designed to easily tolerate this process, since before people came along they never ever faced this sort of ecological pressure in their evolutionary history. This is why when we do put them through it, we must help them recover properly.

Because these big succulents are not designed to transplant in the way that we do it, you need to understand that this is a terrifically stressful situation for the plant to recover from. Of course they can and do survive bare-rooting and moving, but not because of any inherent proclivity for it per se. They mostly need human aid for more than a few percent of them to make it. Watering is one important factor in recovery, but far from the only one.

THE CONDITION IN WHICH YOU OBTAIN YOUR PLANT MATTERS A GREAT DEAL

Before you decide how much to water, you must also understand that the condition of the tree you just bought will play a critical role in the odds of its success. For example, many larger yuccas are obtained from wild sources in nature; others are field grown in larger nurseries in arid climates and then dug and boxed for resale in the nursery trade. Wild-dug plants are subject to whatever environmental conditions immediately preceded their digging in the prior few months. If drought was present in the area before digging, then wild yuccas will be drought-stressed and significantly less likely to survive, no matter what the nursery or final owner does next. If you dig a drought-stricken plant it’s simply going to be much more likely to die.

For obvious reasons, digging a well-hydrated plant is highly preferable. This is because the digging process traumatizes the roots, removing anywhere from around half to well over 90% of them. Clearly a yucca with less than 20% or so of its roots is going to struggle to survive. The more healthy roots there are, the better the final odds of survival are.

Some large yuccas are obtained as salvages from mature yards and landscapes in domesticated situations. These plants are often a much better bet for survival simply because they are likely to have been receiving supplemental watering either directly, or from some nearby source, such as nearby irrigated plants or runoff from roofs and paved surfaces. They are not as restricted by whatever Mother Nature provides wild plants, or doesn’t, as the case may be. Think of how you would want to prepare for a long drive into a remote place by filling up the gas tank immediately before setting off on the road, and maybe even filling a few spare gas cans to carry on the roof as well. You don’t want to head out with only a half tank and no spare containers, because that might leave you stranded in a remote and difficult position! Pre-watering a yucca (or any other large succulent) before you transplant it will top off the cellular tanks internally, and give these succulents more reserves to survive the traumatic root destruction they are about to undergo….

Also, plants in suburban landscapes associated with human houses are usually fairly easy to water before digging, and are not reliant only upon natural rainfall the way wild plants are. When watering a domesticated yard plant before digging it, it’s best to start that a minimum of about 2 weeks beforehand, and 3 to 4 weeks is even better. This is because plants require some time to absorb the water from the soil and rehydrate their cells. If you water a yucca only 24 hours before moving it, it won’t have had time to absorb it. While it might make digging into softer soil easier, it won’t much benefit the plant itself. Give them some time to absorb it first, and 2 weeks is usually around the minimum amount required to gain optimal benefits in this regard.

If rainfall was not sufficient to hydrate a plant (as is frequently true in the semiarid to arid West) then irrigation with a hose or automated sprinkler system will do. Water generously, especially if it’s been a long time since the last rains and if the weather is hot and dry. Really give the soil profile a deep soaking, and water in a wide circle all around the base of the plant. Don’t water only on one side, don’t skimp and water shallowly, and don’t water only near the trunk. Water a couple of meters away from the trunk as well. While you won’t be able to dig all of those roots and bring them with the plant upon digging, allowing the plant to utilize them while they’re all still intact will expedite the cellular rehydration process in preparation for the eventual move. Watering in this manner only once is definitely good, but doing it twice or even up to three times in the weeks prior to the digging and moving is even better. It’s likely to pay off in a healthier yucca, cactus, ocotillo, etc and one that is more ready to reroot in its new space. Yes the plant will be heavier, but that’s what you want because more weight = more water stored = easier and faster recovery times in the future

When actually digging the plant, try to not cut, nick, or otherwise damage the trunk, especially not the portion below ground that is exposed to soil moisture and pathogens. Try to get as many roots as is practicable, knowing that whatever you do it will still be a very difficult thing for the plant to survive. Short of using a big wooden box and a crane and heavy equipment to lift the soil ball weighing hundreds or thousands of pounds, you will have to leave most of the roots behind in the ground. The plant will have to somehow manage on this drastically diminished root system, and it will be unable to absorb water very effectively for many months. This is why if possible you want to dig a hydrated plant, in reference to the discussion above – whatever roots and internally stored water it starts with will, post-digging, become the reserves it has to use to live on.

THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHEN BUYING DESERT PLANTS

I fully understand that most people will not dig or procure their own Joshua tree or other big bare root succulent plant. My main purpose in discussing this area in some detail is to highlight how important it is that the plant you are buying was treated properly and carefully, and with an eye towards minimizing long-term damage and maximizing factors that aid in survival for you, the final consumer. If you are buying an improperly-treated plant, your chances of losing your investment are a lot higher, so this post is supposed to help educate both consumers and transplanters/landscapers on some of the best practices when dealing with and buying them. It will hopefully help the movers do a better job for their customers, and also help customers know what to look for and what sorts of questions to ask in lieu of them being able to conduct the process themselves.

Here are some of the main points of failure when buying a large bare root or recently-containerized succulent in the landscape and nursery trade. I’ll use Joshua trees and other yuccas as the primary group for this discussion. The first major hazard is buying a wild Joshua tree that was dug under drought conditions, which are distressingly common in recent years across the entire desert southwest and beyond thanks to long-term aridification and climate change. Buying a drought-stressed, badly dehydrated tree in winter is bad enough, but worst is doing it in summer when it’s even hotter and drier. Drought-reduced trees might superficially look almost the same as well-watered ones, but I guarantee you they are about 80% likely to die within the next year, as opposed to maybe only 15% to 20% likely for well-hydrated ones.

Ideally, you want to buy a wild yucca or Joshua tree (regardless of retailer – we are talking about original sourcing, not who is selling it right now, today….) that was dug in the cooler months of October to March, and not during a super-dry winter. Frankly, almost all Joshua trees are wild-sourced and almost never grown to any substantial size in nurseries. The same goes for ocotillos over about 5 feet tall, and saguaros taller than around 3 to 4 feet – almost all of these are wild-dug plants and not nursery-grown. Smaller yuccas, saguaros, barrel cactus, et al are often nursery grown, especially if they are in 15 gallon pots or less.

Again I am making a distinction here not because wild plants are inherently superior or inferior, but because their life history is a strong indicator of what condition they were dug in, and that matters greatly in terms of final survival rates. Also note that this discussion of wild-sourcing applies only to USA native plant species. It does not apply at all to non-native plants such as golden barrels (Echinocactus grusonii), all of which are nursery-grown or captive-produced in some way. With native plants, you have two main types of sourcing – wild and domesticated – and wild ones are subjected to variables that nursery-grown plants simply are not. Knowing how to differentiate between wild and domesticated plants can help you determine whether buying a given plant is worth the risk, or not.

Second, consider how long the plant you are buying might have been in the nursery situation it is currently in. If the plant is clearly rooted into a container and is growing, and is part of a display of nearly identically-sized items of the same type, chances are that it was produced domestically in a nursery and will be easy to transplant and can be expected to survive with proper care. If it is variable in size and appearance and quality is spotty, it was probably wild-sourced, and depending upon geography it may well have been recently dug during a drought cycle. These are much more difficult to get over the survival hump.

It is important to understand that just because a wild-dug plant has been placed into a container does not necessarily mean that it is rooted! Appearances can be deceiving in some cases, and a suffering and badly dehydrated wild plant might very well be sitting rootless in a pot, dying and unable to recover after you buy it and take it home. Beware of this and don’t mistake it as being healthy and well-rooted just because it’s in a pot or box. If, however, the plant is on the small side and is uniform-looking along with a number of others in the same sales area, and looks green and hydrated then it is probably a well-rooted, nursery-produced plant and can likely be safely purchased.

If a plant has been hanging out in the nursery in question without being properly rooted for too long, potted or bare-rooted, odds of survival drop precipitously. More than a few weeks of this, and they are simply really likely to die rather than recover. I understand that the buyer often cannot know this critical piece of information, but the nursery owner often does. Now whether they will tell you, or be truthful in doing so, is another question. But as an aware buyer you can look for certain markers of poor plant health that can help you decide. One strong indicator is yellowing, especially in yuccas and Joshua trees. Another is low body weight for the size, which indicates severe dehydration and/or starvation similar to what you see in malnourished animals and people. If a plant is discolored and lightweight, it’s not a good purchase. I know that it can be hard for most inexperienced buyers to tell what “normal” is, but those are two of the strongest measures of quality, so try to use them to assess it if you are able to. And once more: Variability in size and shape and appearance is a strong marker of a wild-dug group of plants and possible poor quality, while uniformity is usually a marker of nursery production and good quality.

MOST BARE ROOT OCOTILLO PLANTS ARE OF POOR QUALITY

One very important note on ocotillos is that almost all of the plants sold in nurseries in desert states are wild-sourced from private ranchlands in Texas, which has few to no native plant laws and tons of private property without much restriction. Teams of people often attach chains to the wild ocotillos they want, jerk them out of the ground with a vehicle, chop off all of the roots down to mere nubs a few inches long, bind them tightly with wire, stack them into semi trailer trucks like cordwood, and sell them cheaply to large chain nurseries and big box stores. They are sold for retail prices as low as $30 to $50, but they are almost all dead on arrival due to the terrible, wasteful treatment they received during digging, especially if West Texas happens to be in one of its regularly recurring droughts. These poor, abused ocotillos honestly aren’t worth the money you spend on them in my opinion, since less than ~25% of them survive, and even those that do often take 5 to 10 years to finally regrow the missing roots and maybe start looking normal again. I think it’s much better to buy ocotillos from growers propagating them in pots in nurseries, or at minimum to deal with people who make a reasonable attempt to save some of the root system. After all, ocotillos NEED their roots – that is why they grew them in the first place!

To be clear, it is possible to buy fresh ocotillos with good root systems or to dig them yourself in certain circumstances, and to expect that the plants will survive successfully, as illustrated in the photo above. It is the mass-dug (generally from Texas ranchland) ocotillos sold at big box stores and large retailers without any substantive roots that are the problem, especially if the nursery has held them in above-ground bins (no soil at all) or in dry trenches of sand (“soil”, but without any water to speak of) for weeks or months on end. Summer heat and direct sun worsen everything. But if the ocotillo under consideration is known to be fresh, has at least some roots a foot or two long, and is leafed out, potted, and/or actually growing, then the concern for death drops significantly.

Planting in the cooler months, regardless of original domesticated/wild origins, is usually the best thing for large yuccas and other succulents. This applies mainly to people installing them in landscapes outdoors in the warmer and drier regions of selected western states, naturally. Personally I think that planting in these low to middle elevation desert regions during October and November is the best policy, since it means the plants have at least 6 to 7 months of more moderate and cooler (and if we’re lucky, rainier) weather to reestablish themselves in. While it is sometimes necessary for plants to be moved during warmer months (April-September) it’s best to do it during the cooler months if at all possible, and the earlier the better. I’ll discuss moving plants during warm weather separately in a bit.

LET’S DEFINE WHAT A SUCCULENT IS

When it comes to ability to store water and therefore subsist on internal reserves after a transplant, not all succulents are created equal. Succulence (as an adjective it is spelled differently from the plural noun, succulents, but pronounced very similarly) is a somewhat ill-defined botanical term that refers to the capacity of a plant to store water during dry spells, allowing it to survive dry seasons and droughts on said water until rainfall returns. Often a succulent is capable of initiating growth or flowering without having received any recent external watering, using stored water alone to do so. These water storage organs can be the leaves, the stems, the trunk, the roots, or some combination of any or all of these factors.

Most plants specialize in one or maybe two of those organs being succulent, rather than three or all four. Examples of leaf succulents are agaves (genus Agave), aloes (Aloe et al), ice plants (Delosperma et al), and stonecrops (Sedum et al); examples of stem succulents are cacti (Cereus et al), spurges (Euphorbia et al), and some milkweeds (Stapelia et al); examples of trunk succulents include baobab trees (Adansonia) and Australian bottle trees (Brachychiton); and root succulents include plants such as a somewhat obscure range of cucurbits and some of the milkweed relatives. This list is neither comprehensive nor clear cut, and there is a lot of overlap and poorly distinguished definition in play here as well. Like when does a trunk succulent become a root succulent or a stem succulent if there are components of water storage in both organs, for example?

Also there are food storing organs that we don’t really think of as belonging to the succulent classification, such as onion bulbs or potato tubers, and the plants arising from either one are nowhere near as drought-resistant as a cactus of the same approximate weight is. This is because onion bulbs and potato tubers are more aligned with being food storage organs (sugars and starches primarily) than water storing ones, although clearly the bulb, tuber, or cactus stem serves a dual function in all three cases.

Succulents also typically have more than one additional adaptation that is geared towards preventing loss of self-stored water, which itself is the main adaptation. These can include waxy layers on the epidermis that are superb at retarding water loss; lifestyle adaptations such as different types of photosynthetic pathways that are extremely water efficient when compared to non-succulents; and biochemical self-defenses such as toxic or milky sap that deter herbivory by hungry or thirsty desert creatures. Again there is some overlap between all of these categories. But anyone who has watched a potato start shriveling and drying out within a week on a warm dry countertop, versus a cactus the same size surviving for months without any watering, can intuit the difference between which plant is the true succulent.

NOT EVERY DESERT PLANT IS A SUCCULENT, AND NOT EVERY SUCCULENT IS A DESERT PLANT

In ecology and horticulture, a term called “xeric” is commonly used. It’s derived from the Greek root word “xeros“, which simply means “dry”, and is now seen in the word “xeriscape” meaning a dry landscape. Other terms that mean essentially the same thing are dryland gardening, drought resistance, and so forth. Xeric is usually applied to plants and typically means that said plant is drought-resistant. Succulents are one common category of xeric plants, but not all xeric plants are succulent. In fact, most dryland plants are nonsucculents – think of creosote bushes, palo verde trees, and mesquite trees as examples of very xeric desert plants that are not the least bit succulent. They might be exceptionally drought-tolerant while rooted undisturbed in habitat, but if they are cut or uprooted, they die nearly immediately in desert heat and sun because they cannot store any additional water in their cells to survive upon.

This is why I typically do not recommend people try to dig up creosote bushes or other desert plants and transplant them. Unless you are able to dig a goodly portion of the root system and a surrounding soil ball to go with it intact, you will not typically get enough root/soil mass to enable the plants to survive. The larger the plant, the harder this is to do. Sometimes very young and small seedling desert shrubs and perennials can be dug and moved, if you can do it in a spadeful of soil that doesn’t totally collapse and fall apart when moved, but beyond that it’s nearly impossible to do successfully. For example if you want a new creosote bush the best option is to either sow seeds for growing on-site directly, or buy a potted nursery plant and set them out with minimal root loss and disruption. They are xeric plants, but they are not succulents, and therefore are vulnerable to dehydration if they lose too many roots.

Perhaps somewhat oddly, the so-called semi-succulents such as ocotillos and yuccas are in a middle category. They are neither highly succulent like cacti and agaves are, nor are they xeric nonsucculents like creosotes and palo verde trees. They occupy a middle space whereby they have some characteristics of both groups. Yuccas and ocotillos are more tolerant of bare-root transplanting than xeric nonsucculents are, but not as tolerant of it as major succulents are. This not-quite-either categorization can lead to confusion amongst both the general public, and more critically, people in the nursery and landscape industry, who widely misinterpret how tolerant of abuse and dehydration these woody semi-succulents actually are. In turn, these wrong assumptions lead to far more plant death than is strictly necessary. If people properly understood that the protocols of digging and replanting them are different from fleshy succulents, everyone would see higher success rates and greater survival post-transplanting. This is much better for ecology and also better for people’s wallets.

Joshua trees and other yuccas in particular are not very succulent compared to the cacti. Yuccas are woody and fibrous, and store a lot less water than big fleshy columns like barrels and saguaros do. They also have thin and pliable leaves that dehydrate rapidly, as opposed to the leafless cacti which only lose water through their thick, waxy stems much more slowly. There is a large qualitative difference between how resistant a cactus is to the bare-rooting process and a yucca, with the latter being much less tolerant of the entire situation. This alone is one of the biggest reasons why you need to think of them differently and treat them more carefully. Just like xeric nonsucculents, established yuccas are often quite drought tolerant, but ones that were just transplanted have lost most of their roots and they need to be stopped from dehydrating to death while in recovery mode, which can take 2 to 3 full years, with hot summers being the most dangerous and fragile time for them.

HOW TO TEST OCOTILLOS TO SEE IF THEY ARE STILL ALIVE

Ocotillos, another woody semi-succulent plant, can lose their leaves and go dormant and recover when moisture is more available and leafing out later on. A leafless ocotillo is not necessarily dead – it may simply be dormant. Of course it may also be completely desiccated and dead…. so how do you tell the difference? One way is to snap off the tip of an entire branch and see if it is brittle and dry, or if it still retains greenery and is flexible. But I prefer a less-invasive way to test for life on an ocotillo cane. There is a simple technique, whereby you select a cane and then bend one of the thorns sideways, separating it from the stem and popping it off. A live cane will have bright green and moist tissue right underneath the small scar left behind where the thorn had been attached. A dead cane will be yellow or brown.

You can also take the popped-off thorn and touch it to your lips to test for relative moisture levels. Using your lips is useful because they are far more moisture sensitive than the skin of your fingertips is, since we are talking about tiny quantities of cellular water. If you use this “thorn test” or “spine test” to see if the ocotillo cane is both green and still has moisture in it, then you can reasonably assume that the odds of it recovering if you water properly are good. (Note here that ocotillos have thorns, not spines, but that’s a fine botanical distinction and not important to the main point of discussion, which is to check for viability.)

You can use this thorn test to determine how fresh and alive an ocotillo is, if you really insist upon buying one of those poor, rootless, abused specimens at a big box store. If you see it is too yellow, brown, or dry, then don’t buy it. Make the store take the financial loss – don’t take it onto yourself. Maybe if no one buys these crappy abused ocotillos anymore, people will learn to treat them better, even if they cost more. After all, spending $50 on a dead plant is $50 wasted, while $100 on a live one is not. And make sure you buy one with roots while you’re at it!

HOW MUCH AND HOW OFTEN SHOULD I WATER MY NEW OCOTILLO?

If you buy an ocotillo that seems fresh and green and has some decent roots, but is merely leafless for now due to the digging process, you can likely plant it and expect recovery. Ocotillos will not leaf out in the colder winter months (appx mid-November to early March) regardless of watering, since they are genetically programmed to be dormant during chilly, short winter days and long, sometimes subfreezing nights. They do wake up and put forth leaves when it gets warmer, but only if the roots also have water to absorb. My policy on newly planted ocotillos in winter is to water them once every 2 or 3 weeks, maybe skipping if rain is doing the job instead and if it is cold or damp. In summer, water a minimum of once weekly, and be generous. Don’t skimp on watering. Remember, the ocotillo is already in a forced state of drought via sudden major root loss, so please help them out! Remember the photos of the rerooting ocotillo above that was given regular irrigation with the hose, for proof that watering the roots works.

As for how much this amount of water is, that varies with the soil type, time of year, size of the plant, and more. Sandy soils require more watering, clay soils less, silty loam soils in between. Hot weather and large plants require more gallons of water, smaller plants in cold weather less. It’s fairly hard to actually overwater anything in a standard US desert landscape situation, due to strong sun, dry air, heat, and usually the well-draining soils. The actual amounts you give can be anywhere from a few gallons for a smaller plant to 20 or 30 gallons for a large one. Honestly, the precise amount doesn’t matter that much in terms of specific gallon count. It shouldn’t be so little that it isn’t helpful (like one gallon once a month) nor so much that it’s harmful (like 50 gallons a day). You have some room for errors. Mostly, just make sure it’s not zero and it’s not a swamp. Mostly, make sure it’s not zero – people are so terrified of “overwatering” that instead they totally underwater, and their root-stressed new plant dies from dehydration. The end result is the same – a costly dead plant. Give water, just not too much or too little or too often or too infrequently. The plants will work it out as long as you are sort of in some intuitive, common sense middle. 🙂

SHOULD I MIST THE CANES OF MY OCOTILLO?

One more question that I regularly get about ocotillos is along the lines of, “I was told that you are supposed to mist the top branches of the plant every day. Is that true?” The answer is that misting is marginally helpful, is not really harmful, and is by itself completely inadequate as a substitution for actually watering the root system of your new ocotillo. In other words, if you happen to be out there with the hose watering someday and you want to spray down the canes, that is perfectly fine. But you can’t count on that alone being enough to get the ocotillo to recover and leaf back out. Water the roots!

One common and obnoxiously persistent myth about desert plants, regardless of type, is that they can absorb water through the stems or branches or leaves or spines, as the case may be. They cannot! Desert plants have lengthy and extensive root systems for a reason, and that is to absorb water. It is the roots that are the entire mechanism by which these plants absorb water, and nothing else. All of the above-ground growth on succulent desert plants is designed to store water and prevent moisture loss, not to absorb it!

When it comes to water exchange via the top growth of most desert plants, it is a one-way street, and that means water is lost via the top leaves and stems, not gained. It is absorbed via the roots when soil moisture is high (after rainfall or irrigation); transported through vascular tissues upwards to the leaves, where photosynthesis and other life processes occur; and then is lost as a byproduct of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange that is required for photosynthesis. Plants in wetter climates where water is abundant don’t need to worry that much about this type of water loss via transpiration in the leaves, since the ecosystem almost always contains enough soil moisture for it to be readily replaced.

This is not so in deserts. Desert plants are frequently somewhat short to extremely short on soil moisture, and as such they have to take various measures to reduce water loss via photosynthesis, or else they will desiccate to death. Without getting into details of the many adaptations desert plants (both succulents and non) have developed to manage water loss, suffice it to say that an unimpeded two-way street of water transfer to the atmosphere is completely maladaptive to desert plants. They can generally only absorb water via roots when soil is moist. Dryland plants manage water losses carefully through controlled opening and closing of the stomatic cells that regulate gas exchange – meaning CO2, O2, and water vapor – which are the three most important atmospheric gases involved in the photosynthetic cycle. In short, desert plants are incapable of drawing water in through their stomates – they only manage water loss that way, and therefore misting the top of your desert plant won’t substantially help increase cellular water levels. Again this doesn’t mean that it’s harmful, just ineffective. To reiterate, water the roots!

I am aware that there are a number of so-called “air plants” (many of them bromeliads) that can actually derive moisture directly from humid air via their leaves, and don’t even require roots in order to survive in some cases, but those are the exception rather than the norm. The most important thing to understand is that your ocotillo, yucca, saguaro, or any other commonly grown desert plant is incapable of extracting water from a desert atmosphere that frequently contains single-digit levels of humidity. Therefore don’t rely upon misting or wetting the top growth of these plants as a mechanism for helping them rehydrate. For the fifth time, I’ll repeat this: Water the roots. This particular myth of “cacti absorb water through their spines” misinformation needs to die, so that the plants don’t have to.

SOME POINTS TO UNDERSTAND ON OVERWATERING

People are petrified about overwatering when they shouldn’t be. Honestly, the truth is that overwatering is not a very common cause of death among plants in desert landscapes. While it is certainly not impossible, generally if something is truly being overwatered, it is more typically associated with water system leakage that provides a continuous flow of water, which eventually saturates the soil layers in the vicinity of the leak and displaces the oxygen necessary for root health over time. This can cause pathogens to attack the roots, or it simply suffocates the roots to death and then the decomposition process sets in afterwards. In other words, sometimes root rot is caused by root death and not to the organisms now feeding upon the dead tissue. It may be akin to finding a dead animal on the road, putrefying and filled with fly maggots, and concluding that the maggots are what killed the animal rather than the car that struck it a week ago. Not all root rot is the same.

Overwatering should be understood to be a chronic, long-term condition, rather than a singular or short-term event. I’ll draw an analogy with food consumption in humans to make the point. Let’s say you are of normal body weight, and your typical caloric intake to keep your weight stable is about 2000 calories a day. But one day for a special occasion, you decide to eat a lot of extra food, perhaps at Thanksgiving for example. You might really let go and eat two or three times more calories than you typically do for the day. You might be super full afterwards for a few hours, but this single day of heavy eating isn’t going to make you gain 20 pounds of body fat. Now let’s imagine that you let your diet and exercise regimen slip, and instead of eating 2000 calories per day, you start eating closer to 2500 calories daily, but without exercising more to burn it off. If you keep this up over time, this is how you can gain 20 pounds over the course of a couple of months. Makes sense, right?

Overwatering is like chronic overeating. It happens repeatedly over time, not just once. Here’s a slightly ridiculous example to really drive this point home. Let’s say you plant a new Joshua tree, and you decide to give it some water, which is what you should in fact do. You set the hose on a moderate-level flow in a spot intending to water there for 15 minutes before returning to move the hose to a new position. But you get distracted and mistakenly forget that you left the hose running, and by the time you remember to turn it off hours later, the Joshua tree got a thousand gallons of water. Did you overwater? Technically yes, but like eating a lot of food one time this won’t have any major negative effects if you conduct future irrigation normally, such as watering the tree once every week with 5 to 10 gallons. In this case, the soil around the tree and the whole vicinity will be briefly saturated, but the water will drain away deeper into the soil or run off towards the street, and once you turn the water off the process of oxygen returning to the soil will immediately resume. No long-term harm will be done in this case.

Now consider an alternate example. You plant your Joshua tree, install irrigation lines and an emitter, but unbeknownst to you the system is faulty and continually delivers a trickle of water to the tree even when you think it is turned off. You may not notice this flaw in the system because the pooled up water is hidden underneath a gravel mulch, and you believe that your automated and programmed irrigation system is only going off once a week rather than leaking continuously all day and all night long. This faulty emitter ends up providing your Joshua tree with 10 gallons of water every single day. Over the course of 100 days (roughly three months) your Joshua tree will have gotten the same thousand gallons of water that the single-event flooding did, and your tree has developed root rot due to continuous wetness. But the aggregate amount is the same. What’s the difference? One situation is quick and singular, and the other is long-term and chronic. In other words, overwatering is similar to overeating, and “water obesity” is the result. The duration and timing of the water being delivered is what matters far more than the sum total quantity of water in these two scenarios.

IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND: SUCCULENTS DO NOT HATE WATER!

The take home lesson from this discussion is that most desert plants tolerate short-term wetness very easily, and in fact almost all plants require at least some phases of wetness in their native habitats in order to perform well and reproduce via seedlings. This goes for succulents and xeric nonsucculents alike. Succulents store large amounts of water as an adaptation to their periodically or chronically arid environment, and some big succulents (Sonoran Desert saguaro cacti, African baobab trees) often weigh multiple tons due to their high water storage capacity and large body sizes. If these plants didn’t tolerate, or even require, spells of abundant watering then they wouldn’t be adapted to utilize it when it is available. In short, succulents do not hate water and aren’t afraid to absorb it if the water arrives at the right time of year and in the right quantities, spaced out reasonably, and in suitably well-drained soil conditions. This is why you should not hesitate to water your new desert vegetation transplants regularly. Being too afraid of “overwatering” them by giving them a few gallons once a month is not the correct way to treat them. This is doubly true in hot summer weather. Water them! Don’t be paranoid about it!

Don’t forget that your recent transplants, whether potted in modestly-sized containers or bare-rooted, have a diminished and often damaged root system that isn’t as capable of water absorption as an intact, well-established plant is. They need higher levels of moisture availability than established, well-rooted plants do precisely because their roots aren’t currently “normal”. The main thing separating succulents from certain death after a traumatic move is the buffering capacity that their internal water storage gives them. Those stored reserves are what they are surviving on until the roots can regrow, which takes some time. If that stored water runs too low, they can die.

SUCCULENTS CAN TAKE A LONG TIME TO PERISH, WHICH OBSCURES UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THEY SHOULD BE TREATED.

The significant buffer zone that succulents have towards quick or instantaneous death is ironically a big factor in why so many people mistreat them. It may be by accident or via misunderstanding, but if you get their needs wrong, they are just as capable of being killed via incidental neglect as any nonsucculent plant can be. Succulents don’t die as quickly or easily as nonsucculents do when their roots are disrupted, and this long lag time can very easily mask the underlying issue, which is often underwatering for fear of overwatering.

An ocotillo or a yucca can take anywhere from 4 to 12 months to die. A saguaro or barrel cactus can take 2 to 3 years, or longer, to decline and eventually succumb. These protracted death times can obscure the true causes of mortality, and when you are talking about years, the homeowner often doesn’t even connect the death today from the transplanting of 5 years ago. They assumed that because the plant was green that it was fine and happy. And they are perplexed when it collapses into rot, or slowly but surely shrivels to death, becoming a dry husk of its former beauty. All of this extensive discussion is intended to educate people on what to look for with several of the most popular types of succulents in landscapes, and how to interpret their different needs and tolerances of transplanting.

Therefore, the end goal is to get the plants to recover as quickly as possible. Recovery of heavily damaged root systems occurs on a sliding scale, takes anywhere from months to several years, and varies both with the particular species of plant as well as with individuals within that species. The starting point matters (i.e. how many roots did the plant come with, what condition of hydration was it in when it started, and what time of year is it?) and subsequent treatment in the final planting space does too. But one thing remains very important to remember: Water them!

Sorry for ranging all over the map of discussion, folks. My intention is for this to be the most comprehensive discourse you will find on buying, preparing, moving, replanting, watering, and caring for large desert plants of several different species. The three primary categories of succulents we’ve been discussing are the yuccas and Joshua trees, ocotillos, and large cacti such as saguaros and barrels. I am talking the least about the cacti for two reasons. One is that they are the most succulent and have the lowest death rates through misunderstanding of their needs, and the other is that cacti generally have the widest margins of error. Even if completely misunderstood and accidentally (and sometimes purposely) mistreated, many cacti manage to overcome their challenges to survive and recover fully.

The other two plants I’m focusing the most on, yuccas and ocotillos, are much more fragile and difficult to establish, for all the reasons of semi-succulence that I’ve been discussing. They are often, and incorrectly, lumped together with highly succulent cacti when they are in actuality quite different anatomically speaking. Plus they don’t possess the same tolerance for mistakes that cacti tend to have. That’s why I am providing sections discussing ocotillos in one place, and then discussing yuccas/Joshua trees in another, and saguaros/cacti in a third. While all three categories of plants have commonality, the differences are still significant, which warrants separate treatment and explanation.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YUCCAS, OCOTILLOS, AND CACTI?

Out of the three major categories of xeric plants I’m covering, I would rank yuccas and their monocot kin as the most fragile and difficult to get to survive a bare-root transplanting process. For those unfamiliar with that term, a monocot is any plant that has one seed leaf upon germinating, while a dicot is any plant that has two seed leaves. This is a major botanical distinction and one that reaches far back into evolutionary history, which is why botanists and taxonomists utilize that as a division point. Examples of monocot plants are various grasses (including food crops like wheat, rice, and corn), bamboo, orchids, palms, and of course yuccas. Dicots are nearly everything else in the plant world, easily exemplified by beans, peas, pumpkins, zinnias, and anything else that germinates with twin seedling leaves, including cacti and ocotillos.

There are also numerous other important anatomical distinctions between monocots and dicots. One such difference is the fact that monocots do not form true wood the way most large dicots do. Even if the monocot plants are large and treelike, such as many palms and Joshua trees, their trunks are composed of bundled fibers and do not have true wood and annual growth rings the way most dicot trees (for example pines and oaks) do. One important exception to the generally correct rule of dicots forming true wood and annual growth rings are, ironically, the large cacti like saguaros and their kin. They are significantly different from woody trees in lacking these features, while still being dicots and among the largest succulents possible.

Back to the main point, however: Woody monocots like Yuccas, Nolinas, Dasylirions, Beaucarneas, and several others tend to be more sensitive to transplanting than highly succulent woody dicots like the cacti are. They don’t have the same anatomy and seldom store the vast quantities of water in fleshy tissue that the cacti do, which makes them more vulnerable to desiccation when transplanted with the attendant root damage. The leaves on all of these plants are linear and thin and have little to no water storage capacity, which gives them a large surface area from which to lose moisture more rapidly. Meanwhile cacti are leafless and store lots of water, and are therefore a great deal more resistant to dehydration while root compromised.

One more extremely important point to understand about yuccas is that they generally cannot lose all of their leaves and still be alive. If a yucca goes fully yellow or brown, then it has most likely died and will probably not recover at the crown point where the leaves were being produced. Some yuccas can resprout new leaves from lower down the trunk or at the base (including sometimes out of the buried segments of trunk or roots) but basically if a beautiful yucca you just bought loses all of its green leaves, chances are that it’s gone.

Contrast this with ocotillos, which can go leafless and still be alive, as I discussed earlier. Or with cacti, which are simply always leafless. If a cactus is still green, it’s probably still alive, although not always since sometimes internal rot is happening and might surface to kill the plant to your surprise. But the point is this: A leafless yucca is dead (unless it maybe recovers from the base, slowly) while a leafless ocotillo might not be, and a green cactus probably isn’t. This is just one more reason why these three popular species of desert landscaping plants shouldn’t automatically be lumped together, and should instead be understood to have different needs and responses to the transplantation process.

Another concept to grasp regarding yuccas and Joshua trees is that a certain amount of transplant shock is inevitable after a bare root move. Yuccas will typically lose about 50% or so of their currently green leaves in the 2 to 4 months immediately after transplanting. These leaves will start as whatever shade of green they naturally are while growing, then turn yellow, start drooping, and eventually dry up and turn tan or brown as they fold down the trunk to join the dead leaves that are often already present. Most yuccas retain a persistent skirt of dead leaves, which serves to insulate the trunk from heat, cold, and drought, and it’s a natural feature of the genus.

This leaf death process in response to digging stress usually happens to the lower half of the living portion of the crown, or on the lower half of each branch on a multiple-armed Joshua tree. It can look rather scary, and the yucca or Joshua tree will look like hell while it’s yellowing; but if you expect this process to happen and understand it to be normal then hopefully that can mitigate your anxiety. As long as the upper 50% or so of the leaves remain green then the plant is still alive. Eventually, once the roots are back to normal, growth can resume and fresh leaves will emerge out of the apical meristem(s) to replace the lost foliage.

Additionally, don’t interfere with the yellowing process. What the plant is doing is reducing the number of green leaves it has to support upon the damaged roots and limited internal moisture storage. It is withdrawing water and nutrients from those dying leaves and translocating some of those reserves down underground to aid with root tissue repairs. Let them do it, and steadily provide water and shade cloth if needed in summer to facilitate the process.

SO, HOW SHOULD I TAKE CARE OF MY NEW JOSHUA TREE OR YUCCA?

As I’ve been emphasizing, yuccas and Joshua trees are in some ways the most fragile and difficult plants to move in a bare root fashion. Their trunks are rather woody and fibrous and don’t store as much water as more typical succulents. They have thin leaves with a large surface area that loses stored moisture more rapidly, and they cannot go leafless into dormancy and still be expected to survive. A leafless yucca is a dead yucca. The root system on woody, fibrous yuccas recovers more slowly than those on fleshy cacti and agaves. They are more fragile for longer during these extended recovery times. All of this conspires against the plants after a move and most people, homeowners and landscapers/nursery professionals alike, tend to underestimate their sensitivity and overestimate their resilience.

It is therefore of utmost importance to minimize leaf loss – and water loss – and maximize the speed of and chances for recovery with newly-moved bare-root yuccas and Joshua trees. Ideally one would start with a healthy plant, one that was well-hydrated by either rainfall or irrigation (or both), and would transplant it only once to a permanent new site. That means no interim boxing or potting into containers first, followed by a second move later on. Large bare-root wild or landscaping yuccas resent interim potting situations, more so than plants that were adjusted to containers from the very start as seeds.

Similarly, avoidance of dual transplanting events should also hopefully mean no temporary holding facilities, followed closely by another move to a permanent spot. Many yuccas that were well underway towards normal recovery immediately after a first move, will be killed by the second one. This is because the fragile brand-new roots that were just starting to develop successfully will be ripped loose and lost a second time, especially if the second move occurs only a year or two after the first one. The plants have not had time to recover fully and spent almost all of their stored reserves to reroot the first time. They may very well not have the strength to recover a second time. It’s really a lot like scheduling a hip replacement surgery only 6 months after you had a heart transplant – there just wasn’t adequate recovery time between two major types of surgical procedure. I strongly suggest avoiding back-to-back transplanting events scheduled only months apart. Move your transplants only one time, if at all possible. This one-time move would ideally be done at the right time of year (the cooler months of September through March, maybe into April at the latest) and be followed up with proper care and watering for up to three years if necessary.

If you follow all of these steps in good order and with proper timing and commitment, then your new yucca/Joshua tree will probably survive with about an 80% or so likelihood. Note that this still means a 20% death rate, no matter what you do. Expect that there is about a one in four to five chance that even if you do everything perfectly, that about 20% to 25% of plants will still perish. However failing to follow these suggested protocols and best practices will result in even greater percentages of death. I’m just telling the world what the odds are and which variables you need to control for the most, and failure to do some of them will take bites out of your success rate. Perfection is impossible. But failure needn’t be nearly 100% either.

For the sake of completeness, I will say that if good moving and care protocols are followed with fresh and root-preserved ocotillos, the long-term survival rate is probably over 90%, and with saguaros and most other cacti, 95% or more. Yuccas are nearly as perishable as lettuce comparatively speaking, so treat them with the greatest care and concern. Just remember that no plant has a 100% success rate, but it can definitely be higher than it’s historically been due to abusive and nonsensical misinformation.

IMPORTANT STEP: SHADE CLOTH YOUR YUCCAS FOR THEIR FIRST SUMMER!

Here is one trick to reduce leaf loss on yuccas and Joshuas during summer heat that should be widely recommended and practiced: Shade cloth over the crowns the first summer, post-move. Since yuccas need to have green foliage and cannot survive without it, taking measures to reduce foliar death is critically important. Draping large squares of 50% shade cloth over the leaf crown can greatly reduce heat stress and sunburning and water loss via the leaves, allowing the plant to dedicate more energy to the equally critical job of root replacement. Don’t force the plant to choose between losing excessive stored internal water supplies to the leaves being fully exposed to brutal summer sun and heat, and the urgent job of underground root recovery. Shading them during the hottest times of the first summer can dramatically aid them in stabilizing their root-damaged condition and enable more rapid healing.

When selecting shade cloth to use, I recommend a shading density of about 40% to 50%, meaning that about this percentage of sunlight is blocked. You need to allow for air circulation and sunlight penetration for photosynthesis, just not full-strength summer sun. Don’t make the shade cloth too dense or else you hamper photosynthesis, which is the thing that enables the production of the sugars, starches, and proteins that result in new root tissue. And new root tissue enables water uptake to replace the moisture being lost to the leaves. You are trying to facilitate a positive spiral of photosynthesis, underground root repair, water absorption, and new growth. Shade cloth that reduces heat and sun stress for summer can greatly aid this positive spiral.

Shade cloth can be purchased at most big box garden centers and nurseries and is often sold for shading windows, carports, shade structures, and greenhouses. It’s basically a woven UV-resistant poly plastic fabric designed for sun blockage, from as little as 20% to fully 100%. Obviously the middle range of 40% to 50% sun screening is the preferred amount for new transplants. While some people construct a frame of some sort over their yucca to suspend the shade cloth over the new plant without touching the foliage, I personally find it acceptable to simply drape it directly onto the leaves, allowing the sharp leaf tips to impale through the fabric and hold it in place.

If the plant is small, I usually just drape it all the way to the ground and pin the corners down with rocks or something so that it won’t blow off in the wind. On larger plants, you can cover all of the leafy uppermost crown parts and then secure the flapping cloth to the trunk with wire, allowing it to be a little bit loose but not so much that it blows sideways. Covering the trunk itself isn’t that important on the yuccas since they are often covered in dead leaves and aren’t the photosynthetic or moisture-losing parts of the plant anyway. The leaves are what matters, and keeping them green is the most important thing. Shade cloth is probably not necessary on yuccas for more than one summer, usually the first one. But sometimes individual plants struggle for one reason or another, and still look weak or yellowish their second summer, in which case make sure to put the shade cloth back on a second time.

Other fabrics also can work for shading, such as burlap or cheesecloth, but I prefer poly shade cloth for its durability and reusability. Shade cloth can also benefit other new transplants in the summer months, not just yuccas. I don’t hesitate to put it over any plant that appears to be struggling in summer heat, including saguaros, agaves, aloes, young barrel cacti, and so forth. Older and more established plants that are fully rooted and well-watered will usually not require shading in summer, as long as they are also sun-tolerant species like many barrels and saguaros. Other species are simply going to suffer in desert summer heat regardless of age or establishment, and will either need to be planted in partial shade underneath trees, or on the east side of houses which block the afternoon sunlight, or shade clothed. Once fully rerooted, most yuccas will not require summer shade cloth again, as long as they are getting adequate periodic watering as well. Shading is most important during the root regrowth phase after a transplant, especially the first summer.

UNDERSTANDING AND RECOGNIZING SUNBURN AND HEAT STRESS IN YOUR DESERT PLANTS

The biggest signs of heat stress and sunburn on any plant are yellowing leaves starting in June or July, and/or dead scabby patches on the epidermis. Yellowing isn’t always permanent and many plants can return to a normal green or bluish color within days of being shade clothed; but sunburnt, leathery dead patches on the leaves or skin are permanent and will not disappear. On plants like yuccas or agaves which can grow new leaves this can be overcome with time as fresh growth replaces the damaged portion. On cacti and other stem succulents, however, the damage is permanently visible on the stem. Once those stem cells are dead they are dead forever, and nothing can be done to reverse that, appearance-wise. This is why avoiding damaging levels of summer sunburn is important.

SHOULD I REORIENT MY PLANTS THE SAME WAY IN WHICH THEY WERE GROWING?

It is increasingly common knowledge that replanting desert succulents with the same orientation that they originally grew with is useful or important to do. I get inquiries about this matter all the time, just like I do the watering question. Maintaining the same directional orientation is mostly true, but not that many people understand why it’s done in the first place – not even those professionals who do nursery and landscape work for a living. The primary reason why you want to keep the south side of the plant facing south, north facing north, etc is to prevent sunburning on the sunniest (usually south and west) sides of the plants. This is most important on green-skinned plants like saguaros and barrel cacti, and much less important on plants that have bark or dead leaves on the trunks, like ocotillos or yuccas. If a yucca or agave gets a few burnt leaves, then it can eventually grow new ones and isn’t generally more than a visual nuisance for the time until it does so. Try to avoid sunburn on permanently green stem tissues however. Basically, sunburn is ugly but not usually fatal. It is good to avoid, but I wouldn’t obsess over it since plants can and do successfully readjust to new positioning, especially at cooler times of the year with less strong sun and heat.

If you know what the original orientation is on your new acquisition, then try to recreate the same positioning in your own yard if possible. However sometimes this is impossible, in which case you can readily use a work-around method. Occasionally you do not know the original directional orientation of your plant, or it is impossible to duplicate due to the approach for loading the heavy plant onto equipment or the reverse in replanting it. In those cases, what you can do is assess the sunniness of the new spot, the time of year, the type of plant, and how far off the orientation is. Ultimately the answer is shade cloth, as has been thoroughly discussed a few paragraphs above. Use shade cloth for a few weeks to a few months to allow the plant to adjust its sun tolerance to a new direction, and to allow the seasons to turn cooler and shorter. Once both things have happened, you can generally remove the shade cloth without incident, and the plant will go about life in its new spot just fine from then on. Mostly, just try to avoid sunburning in May-September when the days are longest, the sun is the strongest, and the weather is the hottest.

Sometimes on younger or smaller stem succulents and cacti, it is possible for them to grow out of sun damage as the new growth emerges at the top and the damaged parts sort of fold underneath the base. But once a cactus reaches a certain height, that sunburn will simply stay in place on the side and forever be evident. Sunburn is not necessarily fatal to the plant or damaging to its future health, but it is ugly and unsightly, so that’s enough of a reason for why you should want to avoid it. This principle applies to all manner of stem damage, whether it is caused by sunburning, abrasion, scratches, holes, pruning scars, or any other type of imperfection. Once physical damage occurs to a plant, it can’t be undone, although usually it simply scabs over, becomes a scar, and “adds character”.

ADVICE FOR PEOPLE TRANSPLANTING LARGE SUCCULENTS IN COLDER OR WETTER CLIMATES

This detailed discussion has been mainly geared towards people buying, selling, and transplanting xeric plants in warm desert climates. This is mainly because the large majority of such plants will be moved in those places. Generally, most of what I write will apply to people and plants living in the warmer and drier regions of the following states: Arizona, California, southern Nevada, southern New Mexico, West Texas, and the southwestern corner of Utah around St George. However xeric plants can be grown in many other arid or semiarid regions as far north as eastern Washington, southern Idaho, Colorado, northern Utah, Oklahoma, and beyond. And of course there is a belt across the southern United States starting with East Texas and going over to the Carolinas which is warm and humid where certain species of large succulents and semi-succulents can also be grown. I can’t possibly cover every region where such plants can be grown so to some extent it is up to the individual reader to determine the odds of success with growing whatever species they are considering in their state or climate.

So here’s what I will say to readers who live outside of the southwestern USA: If you live in a climate that experiences significant cold in winter (USDA Zone 7 or lower) you will probably want to establish your bare-root yucca or cactus etc in the summer months, not the winter. I have been insistent about fall planting in the warmer US deserts (USDA Zone 9 or higher) simply because it makes obvious sense to avoid torrid summer heat and sun when plants are already stressed. Planting during the cool and mild winter is way easier on them. In the low deserts, summer is the main killing season, not winter. So avoid planting in summer if possible, and if it’s not, take measures with shade cloth and watering to mitigate against sunburn, scorching, and dehydration. In Zone 7 or colder climates, winter is the killing season, so plant in the spring and aim for summer rerooting. Seems fairly common sense, right?

I haven’t mentioned USDA Zone 8 however, and this is because this desert zone is sort of in between the other extremes. Summers aren’t usually as brutally hot in Zone 8 deserts, but can be significantly challenging for bare root plants nonetheless. Winters aren’t usually bitterly cold in Zone 8 deserts either, but they can be prone to a lot of subfreezing nights over a period of 4 to 5 months, cold enough to really inhibit root recovery. For Zone 8 arid regions I would probably aim for an early spring transplanting and keep an eye out for summer heat and drought stress, adjusting water and shade cloth accordingly.

If you happen to live in a wet but fairly warm climate (Zone 8 or higher) I think that fall planting is likely to be acceptable, but so is spring or summer. Zone 7 or colder, obviously it needs to be spring planting. And since the native climate is so much wetter, rainier, and more humid, now you will need to make adjustments for that in the opposite direction of what I’ve been discussing for arid climates. Suddenly overwatering is a real concern, and root rot in perpetually damp soil and high humidity plays a far greater role than desiccation will. Shade cloth is probably neither necessary nor helpful in a wet climate, and may in fact be harmful. Soil drainage becomes important simply because it’s not a virtual given the way it is in dry climates. A period of root drying and callusing before replanting might be far more useful in a wet climate, whereas it’s either pointless or harmful in a dry one (unless handled carefully and appropriate to certain situations). Misting the top isn’t needed and might do more harm than good if it causes crown rot or fungal spread.

My area of expertise has been with transplanting large xeric plants in a dry and warm climate, gleaned over 25 years of careful observation and the transfer of easily a couple thousand plants during that time. I am adding this paragraph to the blog because already I have gotten some inquiries about when and how to move a big yucca or agave in a wet climate, and I realized that those are legitimate questions for the people who have them even if it is less commonly done than in the deserts. That’s why I am teaching people about how to properly infer what their situation calls for regardless of climate. As long as people read and comprehend what succulent plants and their kin go through upon being bare-rooted and moved, they can adjust their care based upon their climate and temperature regime.

International readers can also do the same thing, and extend it to completely different species. The general principles I’m laying out apply to nearly all succulents, regardless of whether they are being moved in Arizona, Africa, or Australia. Moving a big stem succulent Euphorbia in South Africa isn’t that different from moving a big cactus in the United States. A tree aloe is similar to a big yucca, albeit maybe somewhat more succulent. If you happen to be needing to move a “Madagascar ocotillo” (Alluaudia or Didieria spp) it won’t be that different from a true North American ocotillo (Fouquieria spp) in the USA or Mexico. Mostly, as long as you know about the distinction between very succulent, partly succulent, or nonsucculent plants and how they function metabolically speaking, you can transfer the information across different genera.

POTTED PLANTS WITH GOOD ROOTS PLANTED FROM CONTAINERS ARE NOWHERE NEAR AS FRAGILE AS BARE-ROOT PLANTS ARE

I have been focusing extensively upon the challenges and difficulties of bare-root desert plants, mostly of three types: Yuccas and Joshua trees, saguaros and columnar cacti, and ocotillos. The reason for this is because bare rooting is truly an extremely difficult thing for all three types of plants to survive. No one should underestimate the hardship that such extensive root loss inflicts upon these plants, how unnatural it is for them to experience it, and how long it takes them to recover from it. We treat these succulent plants as if they have infinite capacity to tolerate abuse and neglect, when they simply don’t. Yes, their survival skills around bare root transplanting are well beyond that of nonsucculents, but this fact has led to widespread ignorance and lack of critical thinking around the topic of how harsh this really is upon them.

Moreover, all three types of plants have their own peculiarities and unique pitfalls in terms of weaknesses and recovery modes. This is why I have spent around a week in writing and editing the material in this post, to fully contextualize and explain the challenges the plants face from the plants’ perspective. Once this is more widely accepted and understood, it is my hope that survival rates will improve, and wasteful and deadly practices that collectively cost millions of dollars and tens of thousands of plant lives can be reduced. I’d like this to be a comprehensive tutorial on the best practices surrounding the relocation and care of large succulents. It’s a badly needed primer to help dispel myths and misunderstandings.

In light of this, it can with much relief be stated that transplanting well-rooted desert succulents from containers and nursery boxes is much easier on them, and that both planting and aftercare are much less fraught with deadly misinterpretations. Survival rates are much higher and margins of error are a lot wider with containerized plants. It’s just a lot easier to get a well-grown potted plant to survive in the harsh temperature and sun extremes of the outdoors. When you are transferring a well-established potted plant of any type to the ground, you are usually doing so with little or no major disruption to the root system. This simple truth alone means that the plants suffer minimal transplant shock or metabolic stress to the roots, or to the leaves and stems. As long as the soil ball from the pot or box doesn’t disintegrate into pieces (thereby bare-rooting the plants in the de facto sense) your new desert item should take off quickly, provided that proper watering is given and other care such as shade cloth is offered if appropriate.

Of course a potted plant with healthy roots will still not be fully settled into its new home for a year or two, and as such additional water should be offered. Plants that are in containers have roots that are typically confined entirely to the circumference of the container, and to really get growing in your landscape they need a chance to put more roots out into the open soil profile, which takes some time. These partially un-established specimens will be a bit more vulnerable to dryness in particular for several months to a year while they send forth roots beyond their original confines, so water them a bit more heavily and regularly for a few months while they reroot into an expanded zone of native soil. Shade cloth might be helpful if it is summer and the plant is showing signs of heat and UV light stress, but overall the process of rerooting containerized plants is a lot easier for both the plant and for you. Mostly as long as you offer reliable watering on a regular schedule and a meaningful quantity, you should be fine. It’s a whole lot less sketchy than bare root specimens are.

FINAL SUMMATION FOR THE TL:DR VERSION

To close out this admittedly lengthy discussion, I’ll offer a summation using bullet points of major points to remember for all three types of plants, separately. If you need to reread a point to get more detail or an explanation of why it’s important, scroll back upwards and find it in the main text above.

JOSHUA TREES AND OTHER YUCCA SPECIES

1. Yuccas and Joshua trees are not in the cactus family. They are not very succulent and require different handling and follow-up care from genuine cacti.
2. Get a fresh tree, preferably one that was well hydrated before it was dug.
3. Transplant the yucca or Joshua tree at the right time of year, which ideally is in the autumn (October/November is best), to allow for maximal time of root recovery in cooler weather.
4. The more time the yucca or Joshua tree has before hot weather returns in summer (typically starting in May), the better it is for the plant.
5. Offer adequate follow up watering to the root system. Make sure it is enough water to matter, and to soak the soil down to where the roots actually will be developing 1 to 2 feet below the soil surface.
6. Plants won’t generally root well or at all into bone dry soil, so water regularly and adequately to promote rapid and healthy new root development.
7. Overwatering is far less of a problem than underwatering is, within bounds of reason. Don’t skimp on watering for the first two years at least, especially not in hot summer weather.
8. Overwatering is not very likely to cause the death of your plant. It is root trauma that is usually far more responsible for plant death in the aftermath of a move.
9. Root stress and root system loss, paired with a paranoia towards overwatering, leads instead to underwatering and dehydration, which is equally as deadly if not more so.
10. Your job is to minimize the effects of said trauma, in part by watering enough to promote new roots and rehydration.
11. Remember that your bare root Joshua tree or yucca plant has a greatly reduced and damaged root system, and therefore providing regular adequate watering is critically important for root recovery.
12. Do everything you can to minimize leaf loss. Expect some yellowing and transplant shock to occur.
13. Shade cloth is useful in the first summer, but might not be needed for the second summer. It shouldn’t be required at all once the yucca has fully recovered, eventually.
14. Bear in mind that full recovery often requires 2 to 3 full years on many yuccas, especially larger specimens. Don’t cut off watering or other supportive care too soon.
15. If your yucca or Joshua tree makes it through the first summer alive, and has survived with good coloration for at least a full year, it has probably made it through the survival bottleneck.
16. New leaves at the branch tips and new pups sprouting out of the soil near the base of the mother plant are strong indicators of successful reestablishment.
17. Joshua trees and other yuccas take easily 2 to 3 years to fully recover from bare rooting. Once they do, they can grow anywhere from 3 to 10 inches a year and start flowering. If this happens, good job, your yucca made it!

OCOTILLOS

1. Ocotillos are not cacti. They are not very succulent and require different handling from real cacti.
2. Obtain a bare-root plant that you know is fresh, if at all possible. If you have assurance that it was only dug a few days to a couple of weeks prior to you getting it, your odds of successful survival are elevated.
3. Use the “thorn test” or “spine test” described above to assess whether the canes on your candidate ocotillo are moist, green, and alive.
4. Look for ocotillos that have good roots. The longer the roots on the plant are, the better. A good plant will hopefully have several roots that are 1 to 2 feet long, even if they sprawl in different directions.
5. An ocotillo that has stumpy, trimmed-off roots that are only a few inches long are a poor choice. I would avoid them, personally, especially if the thorn test reveals dry, yellow, or brown canes.
6. If your ocotillo is wired into a tight bundle, take those wires off and allow the canes to spread open again once replanted. Wiring is only done to facilitate bare-root transport in a vehicle.
7. Tightly bunched ocotillo branches look stupid and prohibit the canes from leafing out properly so that they can photosynthesize. They will also become deformed if left too long this way. You wouldn’t leave your Christmas tree all trussed up once it’s home, so why your ocotillo? Untie them!
8. An ocotillo with green leaves, even just a few of them, is a good sign. You can always water them more once planted and hopefully they will respond quickly with even more leaves.
9. An ocotillo with even a few dead leaves still clinging the the canes is also a decent bet, since it can indicate the plant was freshly dug.
10. Dry leaves drop off rapidly and blow away, so dead ones on the canes usually indicate freshness. Combine with the thorn test for verification.
11. Ocotillos will generally not leaf out if planted in late fall or winter (November to February) since this is their natural dormant time. Watering should still be given, but it won’t result in leafiness if it is still winter.
12. Ocotillos usually will leaf out by mid to late spring (March to May) if provided with water starting in February. Water can be rain, or provided with a hose or irrigation system.
13. An ocotillo that has not leafed out for an entire summer, or up to a year, never will. You were providing enough water during that time, however, weren’t you? Ocotillos will not leaf out if too dry!
14. Once an ocotillo leafs out, determine how vigorously it is doing so. Plenty of green leaves indicates good health and that subterranean root recovery is underway. Few green leaves indicates that root recovery is weak, but still possible.
15. Either way, keep watering weekly in warm weather. Twice weekly in really hot, dry weather.
16. Ocotillos have rather few but very thick and long roots. They take several years to fully recover normal function, so offer support to that end.
17. Ocotillos can resume rapid growth within as little as one to two years post-transplanting. It’s not unusual for new branches to add 12 to 16 inches of length every yea once reestablished, and to start flowering vigorously in April and May. If this is happening, congratulations, your plant made it!

SAGUAROS AND LARGE CACTI

1. Saguaros are cacti, unlike ocotillos and yuccas or Joshua trees. Saguaros that stand over about 5 to 6 feet tall are generally too heavy for the average homeowner to easily move by themselves.
2. You will probably be paying a professional with the right equipment to move larger saguaros since they tend to weigh around 80 to 100 lbs a foot once they reach much above 5 feet tall. (See photos above for an example, using me and my cactus moving trailer.)
3. Your selected cactus transplanter should understand the importance of preserving as many roots as possible on larger plants. For the same reasons as with any other plant: The cactus needs them for survival, and the more roots they retain, the faster they can recover and grow again.
4. While large cacti are typically more tolerant of transplanting due to their succulent, fleshy nature, they too should be watered somewhat regularly, especially in warm weather.
5. A medium to large saguaro should be watered deeply but periodically, either by soaking via running a hose on the ground, or by creating a several-inch-deep retention basin around the trunk several feet wide and filling it.
6. Irrigate the basin and let it soak deeply down to where the new roots are mostly going to be forming underground. In warm weather doing this deep soaking once every 2 to 3 weeks is useful. Less in winter.
7. Shade cloth in summer (May to September) can be very beneficial to large cacti in terms of preventing sunburn on the green skin, and promoting rapid root regrowth below ground level.
8. If a cactus cannot be reoriented with the original south side facing south in its new spot, don’t worry too much – just cover it with shade cloth if the weather is hot, and the plant’s skin will eventually readjust to the new position without sunburning.
9. In winter, shade cloth may not even be needed. Readjustment usually takes only 2 to 4 months depending upon heat and sun exposure, and once it’s done, you can stop worrying.
10. Keep up with regular occasional, but deep watering regardless.
11. Large saguaro transplanting is a highly specialized task usually undertaken only by people with the proper equipment and knowledge of how to do it. This really should be a separate article someday, but for general purposes it can be said that smaller cacti can be successfully moved by individual homeowners or landscape crews.
12. Many cacti will undergo noticeable wrinkling and temporary dehydration as they dip into stored water reserves to generate new roots. Since cacti are leafless and very tolerant of extreme internal dehydration, this isn’t quite as much cause for worry as it is for woodier semi-succulents like yuccas and ocotillos.
13. Most cacti regrow roots the fastest in warm weather. Periodic watering and shade cloth can really help them out in summer heat and greatly speed the process.
14. Cacti usually take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to recover the roots to some semblance of normal. A large saguaro may take 3 to 5 years for decent reestablishment of all the roots they lost during a transplant.
15. Smaller to medium-sized cacti tend to be the simplest of the major desert plants to relocate, and have the highest survival rates with the least worry.
16. That said, larger and older saguaros and other mature cacti take a lot longer to fully recover (as in several years), and have higher death rates than younger, smaller, and more vigorous plants do.
17. New stem growth and branch buds are strong indicators of recovery. Flowers can be as well, although some cacti flower while entirely rootless and unplanted, so it’s not as reliable a signal.
18. If your saguaro or other cactus is still green, alive, and looking plump and hydrated after 1 to 2 years, congratulations, your plant made it!

I’ll conclude this long, long essay now by saying that I hope these detailed explanations of plant physiology and ecological needs and adaptations will help people trying to get them growing in their yards and nurseries to have more success and lower death rates. Wild populations of all three of these desert plant types are under increasing pressure from a variety of factors including climate change, invasive species, wildfires, plant poaching, lack of wild reproductive capacity and new seedlings recruited to replace dying older plants, long-term western drought and aridification, overgrazing, agriculture, development for urban sprawl housing, and lately huge solar and wind power farms. Given the wide array of threats that wild succulent and xeric plant populations are facing nowadays, it’s really important that we don’t waste living plants taken from the wild for the landscape trade by assuming the wrong things about how to treat them before and after digging them. I hope that this comprehensive essay will help educate both nursery professionals and the general consumer public about these long-lived, slow-growing, and costly plants. They deserve our respect, so let’s make sure we honor them and their needs. Thank you for reading!