I prefer to grow plants from seed, so I don't have many weirdoes, but the ones I do have I cherish because they're my own personal cultivars.

Definitely the edible prickly pear is most common hereabouts, people plant it even in parks and ditches for later harvest - basically guerilla gardening. They're also common along fence lines on ag land for the same reason. I'd say echinopsis/trichocereus are the most common ornamentals - unlike typ...

Here in california, the entire genus is illegal - probably to make identification for law enforcement easier. I think most states only L. williamsii is illegal. It's illegal in texas, along with astrophytum asterias and ariocarpus fissuratus because they're endangered in that state - kind of a bumme...

Ime, they're among the less difficult cacti. Almost all cacti are dormant for the winter, so indoors for that part is okay (don't water), they would appreciate half a day of sun during the growing season though. They can handle light frosts as long as they are bone dry, mine have seen 26'f with no l...

Ideally after germination the heat from the lamp slightly dries the surface during the day, and moisture wicks back up again overnight and condenses and runs down the bag to the surface. Leaving bottom heat on kind of counteracts that during the day. If anything I'd supply bottom heat at night and l...

I tried a few grafts on that opuntia since I had a lot of it, but they never thrived - it's certainly far less vigorous than it's normal version (which is a good stock, Imo). Fwiw, I have an echinopsis in a pot with the monstrose subulata and it's grown normally for 8 years, which makes me doubt it'...

Perskiopsis does have wicked spines and glochids, frankly I wouldn't dare plant it in the ground lest I have a huge noxious bush to deal with.

I have a couple big aloe polyphilla, which are allegedly very difficult, but they just sit in the rain here all winter and are happy with it. Different climates favor different plants, and we all pine for the ones that we can't grow easily. (no staghorn ferns outside for me) I was around a lot from ...

Pereskiopsis survives down to 28'F reliably for me. It does lose all it's leaves though. It seems to grow happiest indoors under lights.

Astrophytum have relatively large seedlings which don't do well in bags for extended amounts of time. A couple months to get their roots down is sufficient, and any more is likely to incur losses. Generally my rule of thumb is to take them out when they are about pea sized. That's quick with astros,...

I got divorced... Still have an impressive collection though. Cacti weren't the issue, she had mental health problems. I peek in from time to time to see if there was a cool new discovery, but mainly I'm just keeping things alive as I rebuild.

In my experience, agave seedlings don't transplant all that well until they're fairly large. I like to start them in 1g pots so they can stay put for several years.
Both those species offset profusely, so you'll have them coming out of your ears once they have some size to them!

Often you can find plants that are already of setting from the stock if they have a full tray of them. Hylocereus might do okay in FL too, it's too tender for central ca.

It would be interesting to do a genetic analysis on those populations, I suspect many of them contain only one clone that propagates vegetatively, and adjacent populations may also be the same clone. I have a 14" bowl with several hundred happy pads, but they have never flowered, unlike all the...

I once got a box that had broken open in the mail, and the post office folks had just put a rubber band around it. It looked like a hard taco with seed packets and plants inside (small flat rate box). Several items were missing, but mesagarden replaced them right away and used a lot more tape on the...