cactus

Hi Guys,
As I have mentioned before, I am a new Idahoian and am loving the challenge of gardening in the cold! I have a benign collection of cactus and am fascinated by them, wanting to add to my collection with more interesting plants. However, I am having a problem finding a nursery for "just plain folks", most are for specimen plants starting at 25/30$ or more, I am not in that league yet...and a catalog is not to be found. Can anyone steer me in the right direction? Thanks a lot!

There is a nursery, "Intermountain Cacti", that has been selling very cold-hardy field grown cacti for years. I don't think he has a website. The prices you listed are standard as it takes a while to grow the cold-hardy forms to size unless its an Opuntia. This site might have some seed suitable for where you are: http://www.rmrp.com/ There are a number of forms of Opuntia fragilis which extends near the arctic circle in the Northwest Territories. There's also O. compressa from Ontario, O. polycantha what was called Mammillaria vivipara and Pediocactus simpsonii. Take a look at Benny from Denmarks site on hardy cacti: http://www.bennyskaktus.dk/Hardycac_UK.htm You may need to start the plants from seed for ball cacti but its a very slow process. The Opuntia can be started from joints.