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And spines can become lodged in people’s skin if they so much as brush against a cholla.

As the light catches the cholla needles, the cactus glows like a neon sign in Vegas.

Over three decades, neighborhood foresters have transformed Dunbar Spring’s bald curbsides into lush forests of mesquite, hackberry, cholla and prickly pear cactus and more—all plants that have edible parts.

But it’s been worth it for the desert’s charms: the temperate winters and the cholla and saguaro growing on the hillsides — even as the city gets hotter.

The giant boulders stuck out like warts among the prickly barrel cactuses and the sun-haloed cholla plants.