Just as Nevada's Basin and Range scenery starts to look good to transplants who stay here long enough, cactus plants are beautiful to some who grow them. In fact, people might assume cacti and our high desert conditions would go together like the Oregon coast and forests. We have to remember that even though it's dry and gets hot here, it also gets pretty cold. We have a few native cactus species around here but not many.

That's not to say we can't grow cacti in our gardens. A Sparks man, Charles Barnum, makes it look easy. He wrote in a letter to the RGJ last week, "I grow over 300 selected Coryphantha, Cylindropuntia, Opuntia, Echinocereus, Escobaria, Grusonia, Gymnocalycium, Mammillaria, Pediocactus and Sclerocactus. A few barrel cactus (Ferocactus) can grow in this area, if kept dry in the winter." He clarifies that "[l]ow temperatures coupled with wet soil kills cactus, not necessarily the cold."

Photos of some of his plants are featured on cactiguide.com. That, by the way, is a pretty interesting site. Its main purpose seems to be listing (and showing) every species of cactus. Believe it or not, the owner became interested in growing cacti as a teenager in Minnesota (and provides pictures to prove it). As you can imagine, he knows quite a bit about growing cacti in cold conditions.

Barnum advises those interested in growing cacti here to avoid Opuntia cacti and gravel. If I understand his letter correctly, he adds potting mix, garden lime, and pebble pumice to clay soil (which most of us have) mixed with sharp contractor's sand to obtain "a perfect soil." I wouldn't argue with him after seeing examples of his work.