Re: Which flowering cactus are good to grow outdoors?

paterson00 wrote:
> I would like a few flowering cactus in my flower bed but not ones that
> get too tall.  18 "  most really.  What are my choices?
> 
> 
> 
> 
I would be hard-pressed to suggest something. Not because of the 
temperatures in the UK which I know to be mild enough (at least in some 
locations) to grow palm trees but because of the excess of moisture. It 
seems that it would be awfully difficult to keep the roots of any desert 
cactus dry enough. As cardarch pointed out, some Opuntia are extremely 
hardy -- they grow at high altitudes in the mountains of Utah where they 
get buried in snow for periods but up there it is still relatively dry. 
They are even grown by some people in my present area but our climate is 
still a lot dryer than in the UK.

I have successfully grown night-blooming Cereus (Peniocereus greggii)with 
some of the most amazing flowers I've ever seen in my yard in Las Vegas 
where the temperature occasionally got down to near freezing but it was 
always dry dry dry and more dry except for a few days a year or when I
watered.

-- 
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com