The weather forecast around the country this week is giving people hope that they can finally begin spring planting.

"Mark Baden on [sister station WISN] Friday said it's time to plant, so everybody came in Saturday said 'It's time to plant. Mark Baden said so last night,'" said Karen Matt, co-owner of Plant Land, located in Milwaukee.

Lisa Laabs, a Wisconsin resident, and her family joined dozens of others Sunday at Plant Land as they made their way through the garden center, letting their eyes be their guide.

"I love the tradition of things starting to warm up and us starting to get ready for that summer weather," Laabs said. "They all get their pots at home and they get to pick out their own colors, and we take time to plant them together."

With the temperatures starting to climb, many are eager to get fill their gardens, but patience is key.

Matt, another shopper, told WISN that not all vegetables can thrive in these current temperatures.

"A few more weeks for sure would be tomato plants, pepper plants and eggplant. Cucumber, melon, squash that's at the end of the month," Matt said.

But there are things you can plant.

"Anything in the cold crop Brussels sprouts, broccoli, lettuces, cabbages, kohlrabi, beans peas," Matt said.

Matt shared the recipe for a bountiful harvest: good soil, plenty of sunshine, water and some tender loving care.

"All of us each have one of our own pots. Then we all plant them, and it looks so beautiful when we put it together," Sarah Laabs said.

Matt advises to wait to plant greenhouse vegetables until nighttime temperatures are consistently 55 degrees or warmer.

In 2020, the Bush Fire ripped through the Sonoran desert in Arizona, charring nearly 200,000 acres of pristine wild land in the Tonto National Forest.

Even more devastating was the loss of Arizona's most iconic images.

“We lost, we estimated around 80,000 saguaros in just that one fire, so for something that is only found here in Arizona, that’s a significant number,” said Bec Veerman with the Tonto National Forest.

Veerman says the tragic loss of so many saguaros soon prompted action. Work is now underway thanks to a number of partnerships between TNF, Four Peaks Brewing Company, the National Forest Association and a company called Natural Restorations.

The team is restoring the spiked giants as quickly as possible.

“So, these are some of the saguaros that we’ve rescued,” said Nicole Corey holding a 50-pound Saguaro arm recovered from the Bush Fire burn scar.

Nicole Corey with Natural Restorations is giving us a tour of the new saguaro nursery, a place where fire-damaged or dying saguaro cacti are getting a second chance at life.

“We cried when we first drove through down Bush highway after seeing the bush fire go through and we in that moment committed ourselves to replanting,” said Corey.

Their teams now scour the burn scar for salvageable specimens. Replanting them here under their watchful care.

Once healthy enough, they’re returned to their exact location thanks to GPS. Quickly helping restore the fragile ecosystem.

“Anything we collect from a burn scar will be tagged and marked so that we can put it back where it came from,” said Veerman.

“They come here for a couple of weeks and then we put them back in the ground,” said Corey.

So far, they’ve replanted more than 1,000. The Arizona Lottery recently awarded $45,000 in marketing funds toward the continued effort.

“We are able to take some of that money and do things like this which is giving back to the community in a way that’s going to last for generations,” said John Gilliland, spokesperson for the Arizona Lottery.

A generous contribution to a more than worthy cause because the state certainly wouldn’t be the same without them.

This story was first reported by Cameron Polom at KNXV in Phoenix, Arizona.

CINCINNATI — Many of the Brood X cicadas across Cincinnati are dead, but before they go, they are giving the Tri-State one last gift.

Cicada carcasses are full of nutrients that are beneficial to plants, especially trees. Their bodies act as a natural fertilizer and will help nourish vegetation across the Tri-State. The plants won't bloom more or look greener, but they will be properly nourished.

"All those nutrients in the millions of cicadas that we saw will go into the soil," said Dr. Gene Kritsky, the dean of behavioral and natural sciences at Mount St. Joseph University. "Especially for those trees where they’ve clustered at the base of a tree and you just see mounds of these things."

However, cicada carcasses don't decompose easily, so they will stick around for a while, and they can smell.

Kritsky has a solution for that, though.

"If you don’t like the looks of them," he said, "one thing you can do is literally rake them away from the tree -- not far away -- and then when you mow, provided you have a mulching mower, that will hasten the decline and the smell right away.”

Kritsky said the cicada life-cycle has already started over.

Female cicadas laid their eggs in tree branches, and soon some leaves will turn brown and fall from trees. Then, cicada nymphs will hatch and fall into the soil, looking like dust falling from a tree.