From Burt Graeff

This is in response to Mark McLoughlin’s letter to the editor in the April Vail Voice, a letter in which he said, “Buyer Beware!” regarding a story I wrote on transplanting a 22-foot, three-armed Saguaro cactus on my property in Vail.

McLoughlin said his award-winning (unidentified) landscape designer, a member of the Board of Directors of the Tucson Botanical Gardens, was adamant about relocating a large Saguaro. That they inevitably die very slowly.

Luis Chavez, an owner of Southwest Cactus LLC – the company that transplanted my Saguaro – begs to differ. “There are a lot of companies out there who do shoddy work,’’ he said. “We go to great lengths to transplant these Saguaros properly.

“We have lost a few, but it was to overwatering by the client.”

I was present when the 22-foot Saguaro was transplanted on my property. It took four hours to complete the job and was done with great care.

Buyer beware? Not in this case.

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