Last Updated: May 3, 2026
One of the great pleasures of a spring stay in Tucson, Arizona is the cactus bloom — and the species don’t all flower at once. The bloom moves through the Sonoran Desert in a predictable cascade from March through June: hedgehog cactus first in March, pincushion cactus next as March turns into April, then barrel cactus, prickly pear, and cholla through April, and finally the iconic saguaro reaching peak bloom in May. We left Tucson at the very beginning of April this year, which meant we caught the hedgehogs at their absolute peak, the claret cups in red flame, and the larger barrel and saguaro cacti just beginning to bud — the season was about to truly explode behind us as we drove west. As a longtime photographer of the Sonoran Desert, Michael structures spring stays specifically around this bloom calendar.
