Take a look through the desert-tropical's web site on succulents and see what strikes your fancy. Too many plants that (1) look unusual and (2) flower to enumerate here, but this will give you a start.

Here is a link that might be useful: Are these plants great or what!

The more I think about your question the more difficult it is to answer. It would have been a little easier if you had asked for genera instead of species.
Do you have room for tall/broad cacti?
How much light can you provide? Some cacti needs sunlight during most of the day, others prefer partial shade.
What is the temperature where you want your cacti? The needs vary, some wants a cold winter rest, otherwise they will not flower well, and some don't like low temperatures at all.

TJ,

Those are good criteria to build a collection with, but if you know nothing about genera.....

Just thought it would be easier to suggest something if I knew a little about the growing conditions.

I see what you mean - that's a most eminent question, then, isn't it, as it cuts right to the heart of the matter.

I'll jump in on this since I have some newbie questions as well.

Any recommended online dealers who sell small plants that will get large? I'd really love to experience growing a cactus up to five or six feet tall.

Any recommendations for something that has a sort of treelike form? Guess that's kind of vague, but maybe something that gets about one to two feet tall, with branchlike spreading, rather than clumps.

Here's a variegated aeonium that I picked up a few weeks ago from a nearby nursery. I really love the colors on it.

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#1) Miles to Go (www.miles2go.com)

#2) Aloe plicatilis comes to mind. Many of the Pachpodiums. As far as cacti, any Pilosocereus would fit the bill.

That's a nice plant - the reds are more intense on that than on many I've seen.

Miles usually wears a hat - that's him on the extreme left. And he's got great plants at a good price.
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Here is a link that might be useful: Miles' Place of Plants

Most cactus and succulents are fairly slow growing, but 2 fast growers come to mind.

San Pedro will get big--I was once given an 8" tip cutting and just one year later it was well rooted and 2' tall.

Pencil cactus will also get very big--these can be had at your local Lowe's fairly cheaply.

Thanks so much!

oh sorry not answering your questions i just now got back to my computer
tjicken to answer your question about plant needs i live in middle tennessee so the summer temperatur can reach low 90s during the summer and can occasionally go into the mid 30s in winter so a plant that can deal with cold temperatures will be great and when i put species i meant the genus but i forgot the word so i just went with species hope this clears everything up thank you all for the help

If you're not bringing them in in the winter you're going to have to limit yourself to those that are not cold-sensitive. If you can bring them in, well, the world's your oyster. What do you want to grow? Have you taken a look at the website I linked to?

You should choose plants that will grow well in the growing conditions that you can give them, space, light, air, pot size. After you gain experience and have joined a Succulent Club, you may want to specialize and narrow it down to just two or three different genus or even a speies of haworthia, or ? Lots of low light, lots of heat Epi or hatoria,
Sansevieria, room for bright light plants you may want to change your mind. Try both kind of plants and see which ones you like to work with, and fall in love with. Norma

cactusmcharris
i have looked at the website and i cant decide on what i like best there are so many and yes i can bring them indoors in winter

i was looking at the opuntia genus, i already have a opuntia microdasys albata (which i strongly dislike its nearly microscopic spines come off if you touch it and get stuck in your skin (which hurts) and they're a pain to get out, not to mention they cover the plant,strangeley even though i hate this plant it thrives under my care)anyway i saw a few that had larger scarcer spines that dont get stuck in your skin like mine so are there any recommended species that can handle somewhat cold temps and can be kept in say a 5 gallon pot or smaller? (i dont really intend on eating it)

Not lower than 30+ °F sound wonderful to me, if I had winter temperatures like that I could put almost my entire cactus collection outside the whole year around, but protect the majority from rain (don't know how much it rains in winter in Tennessee though). Many collectors in Central Europe and the UK grow cacti in unheated greenhouses, surprisingly many withstand subfreezing temperatures. Wetness is a bigger problem. Bringing them indoors can cause problems as cacti like lower temperatures, especially at night, when they rest.

Many Opuntia and Echinocereus are very hardy and have big, nice flowers. Several species can be grown outside without protection.
Cacti with pretty flowers that you can grow outside (perhaps unprotected, I'm not sure) are Rebutia, Sulcorebutia, Gymnocalycium and Lobivia (Echinopsis). I my experience they generally flower a lot better if they are stored cold in winter.
Parodia, including Notocactus, are worth looking into as well.

Cacti with odd shapes? The obvious choice is Ariocarpus and Astrophytum (keep dry in winter, but temperature should not be a problem except for Astrophytum asterias - maybe).

I left out the columnar cacti and the so-called barrel cacti as I don't know much about them.

Hope that it can be a starting point, please tell me/us what you think about the looks of these genera.

cool those genera look very interesting especially the gymnocalycium,rebutia and sulcorebutia and as for odd shapes i really liked both the ariocarpus and astrophytum

Jeff,

Who's that giant in the middle in that photo and how tall IS he??!! He reminds me of the guy who played "Jaws" in the Bond movies!

Denise in Omaha

Hi D,

That's Bill Walton, along with Mickey Hart (drummer for the Grateful Dead). I beleive he was one of the first 7' men to play in the NBA.

Hi I just wanted to add a small comment, I have several cactus all of them I have to bring in during the winter here in Missouri, One is a San Pedro which is 20 years old now, I have managed to keep it under 6ft. tall I really like this cactus, but it is very hard to move inside and out and is quite dangerous because of the many spines, it has several growths which add to the problem of moving it. I wouldn't get rid of it for the world as I grew it from a small cutting. The best cactus that I have found that isn't hardy either, is a Epiphyllum and there are 1000's of different varieties with a great many colorful blooms, I have one that is a night bloomer that I have had now for 25 years and when it is in bloom at night its really something to see I have some others that are day bloomers and the blooms range from red to yellow and purple, they can get quite large and very heavy to move around, but the nice thing is, very few have thorns that might hurt you. There is a large number of cactus that will take freezing weather, so long as you don't get any cold wet freezing rain which will kill just about any cactus, because it gets down into the root system and causes them to rot. Should you decide on growing cold hardy cactus outside make sure your cactus bed has plenty of sand worked very deep with a lot of gravel, that way you won't get root rot due to to much water.
George W.

mawehe63
I missed your posting about Opuntia. There are a few forms without glochids (the small spines), one microdasys (cv. 'Caress' and one fragilis too I think). The long spines on Opuntia are barbed and get stuck in skin too, but I find them easier to handle than glochids. At least they give some protection against the glochids, which are present on long-spined Opuntia as well. I grow some O. fragilis (extremely hardy), small but, as the name implies, fragile which can be disappointing, it's a matter of taste.
O. polyacantha is a long-spined, robust, hardy species - some forms can be grown outside in Northern Europe without protection. Many forms are reasonably small and easy to handle, and they often have very nice flowers. O. macrocentra and phaecantha could be worth looking at too, especially dwarf forms.

O. compressa (humifusa) is a spineless, classic hardy species, but the glochids can be annoying (but they are far fewer than on microdasys).

I looked up some general information about the weather in Tennesee, and it seems as it rains a lot there. Those I mentioned should however be fine if they are covered in winter. There are a few tender species among them (Rebutia heliosa and Lobivia famatimensis for example), but that is usually noted in the seller's description.

Some well-known hardy species are Escobaria missouriensis and vivipara, Echinocereus triglochidiatus, cocinneus and viridiflorus. Protection from rain in winter is advisable but not always necessary, it depends much on how well-drained the soil is.

Some more funny-looking cacti: Leuchtenbergia principis, Puna/Maihueniopsis clavarioides and the two Pelecyphora species.

I saw an interesting thread on the BCSS forum about a hardy Gymnocalycium species:

Here is a link that might be useful: Gymnocalycium gibbosum