Hi there in Nova Scotia, I lived there in Halifax for 20 yrs and miss it greatly. Anyway, the answer to your question is no not at all. I have a large collection of cacti in my garden and they are all, not native to Canada except one prickly pair. The birds leave them alone completly except for the one cactus that has long thorns and some bird, which I have never seen do it will stick bugs on the cactus for future dining. Spider do seem to like to put up webs on the cacti and that is difficult to get rid of. My cacti just thrive out side, and do wonderfully. Warning though do not put them in direct light for awhile for they will burn faster than we do.