Silver Torch Cactus
We let our cactus grow to 4″ size (nominal) before we’ll offer them for sale to the public at the nursery. Here we have the perfect specimen of a 4″ cactus.
Cleistocactus strausii
We grow these in sufficient quantities so that each year we can sell some small plants, and then grow the rest on to larger sizes, and the next year we sell a few more larger ones, and then grow the rest on to larger sizes, etc. We tend to grow them until they’re about 4ft. tall with many branches – that’s about the maximum size we would sell. Then we stop the growing. How do we do that? We sell them off post-haste so that you can finish growing them to 10ft. on your own time. These do incredibly well in Berkeley. They bloom heartily.
Here’s a photo of a mature specimen at the Berkeley Botanic Garden.