Very nice, I wish I lived in a climate that would let me do that! Beautiful flowers :-) I also love the little moss roses!

Jessee, if you are on the East side of the Cascades, you do. Check into ColdhardyCactus Nursery

http://www.coldhardycactus.com/index.htm

Intermountaincactus list theirs by Zone and they have Z4 and lots of Z5. It is the moisture that one has to contend with but many of the cactus are dependant on a good period of cold to set bloom. I have listed Intermountain below.

Both of these sites are worth the read through.

Here is a link that might be useful: Intermountaincactus.com

Beautiful gardens.

Lovely. Yellow opuntia flowers is striking.

I usually comment on the palm forum, but you posted here! Nice looking garden, I really feel sorry for the mail man. Nice blooms on your opuntia. Mine haven't bloomed in years, due to being cut back annually. Do you protect your barrel cactus during winter?

Beautiful gardens,and all those rocks really set it off.TFS
Kathi

Very nice garden. I love the blooms.... One thing you maybe should take into concideration is future size. You have some plant moving in your future though. You have planted some cactus that gets really big. The cow tongue opuntia gets up to 10'x 8' in Central texas Z8B when it is happy. That is FEET not inches. The one on my neighbors is a modest 7' and that is on limestone and caliche with no water. The 10" one is on Austin parkland , clay based humus, no water. The other opuntias will get to be a large low spreading mass. I have trimmed 200lbs off of a frog foot cactus (nick name used in San Antonio for "old mexico prickly pear. The mail man and any parking car will be displaced.

Maybe because you are colder , it will be different, but be forwarned of planting things too closely . KNow your species. Some cactus stays small, others cause people to move.

JessieC777 thanks. The opuntia with flowers are native to my zone 7a but are cold hardy to zone 4 and are moisture tolerant

Ron1017 Thank you

Beachplants Thanks

chadec Im not worried about the mailman... until i stop getting mail.
Tha cactus with pink flowers is not a barrel cactus it is a mamillaria and it is not cold hardy I will dig it up and brig it in when it gets cold

kathi_mdgd thanks

wantonamara The cow tounge cactus and the larger prickly pear are only hardy to zone 8 and Im in zone 7. Every year I take one pad inside just in case they dont make it but the past couple of winters have been mild. I also regularly trim all the prickly pears because i sell some on ebay and trade others. If the cow tounge cactus becomes a long term survivor I will trim it so that it is tall and narrow. All the other cactus in the garden are more hardy but stay small. The soil is all sand and they only get rainwater so that would limit them as well.

My girl fiend grows the cow tongue englemanni in OKC and that is Z7a.

Its marginal in my area. it has to do with how long the cold is and how much snow and moisture the cactus is exposed to. 2 years ago it got down to 4 degrees in my yard with some snow and freezing rain and my cactus died but I restarted it from a pad that was inside. i looked at a weathe comparison for Staten island vs OKC and the january average for okc was 29 degreees while staten island was 24 and precipitation was 2inches and 4 inches respectively. Its is a combination of low temperature.

Some statistics from weather.com

Oklahoma City, OK on average is warmer than Staten Island, NY by 9�F.
Oklahoma City, OK recorded the highest temperature of 110�F in 1996.
Staten Island, NY on average is cooler than Oklahoma City, OK by 5�F.
Staten Island, NY recorded the lowest temperature of -13�F in 1982.
On average, Staten Island, NY is wetter than Oklahoma City, OK by 12.2in.

I am sure your mailman is confused if you really hate him (all the prickly) or you really love him (all the colors). But who cares about the mailman, what's important is it keeps the neighborhood dogs and cats from using your mailpost as their personal pee'ing station. Nevertheless., still beautiful and colorful.

Yes, OKC gets blast of really frigid air. She reaches 0 degrees on occasion, but you are right that it stays warmer most of the time. I would have thought that Staten island was kept warm by the ocean. I remember some snow storms during my time living in Manhattan, but mostly I remember cold dreary rain in the winter. Mostly I lived up state and we never saw the ground till spring. Your stats are old, OKC reached 119 last summer with a low of 0 according to archives of the weather stations near the cactus I know (www.wunderground.com). The good thing about this cactus is that it is fairly water tolerant. Central Texas where it home is. We have less rain on average but we are known to get weather events on an occasional winter . I remember winters where it rained and rained. I have seen it not blink an eye with three solid days of freezing rain and 3 nights of 9-12 degree weather in 2011 in the Hill Country. Given ample drainage, I think that your cactus can do well there in Staten Island, but your tactic of saving a cutting is good insurance.
* I stay in an apt. down by the Ferry when I visit NYC

alex I never asked the mailman.. and ive never had a problem with dogs. The mailman is im portant how else would I get all my plants in the mail.

Wantonamara Yeah your right about the rain. This past winter we only reached a low of 14 but we had no snow. It snowed once and the rest was rain. For drainage the cactus is in a raised bed planted in 100% fine sand. Fine sand holds enough moisture for the cactus to grow fast and drains fast also.

Thanks Want I will have to look through! I am in central Washington. I know we do have some cacti native to the area I'm thinking maybe optunia fragilis. They have yellow flowers. There are some bunches of them down on the river banks.