Where are you located Annamaria? This will dictate everything. If you are in a mild climate, you won't want to bother with one of the wild species, but should definitely get a cultivar of Opuntia ficus-indica. These should be readily available from warm-climate nurseries. If you're in a colder zone, you could try Opuntia engelmannii or related wild types. Many of these are available through mail order nurseries specializing in cacti and succulents as well as unusual edibles. I see that Edible Landscaping sells one that is hardy to zone 7. Of course, anywhere in the arid but not-too-cold western part of the country you are likely to see some growing wild or as part of landscaping. Just collect some pads from a variety of plants and wait a year or two to taste the fruit!

Cactus: The thorns are SHARP and will even go through leather gloves when mature - I use kitchen tongs when handling. All I know about it is that the tag said hardy to zone 5. Here are pics of the cactus - first showing rooted cutting with new branching growth (close up of the twisting trunk inset) The second is the roots that are re-sprouting. Looks like a fourth shoot is starting to grow. Would like to know what variety this cactus is:

Norma, after you posted this I got in touch with her (I caution to publish her name). I was doing some traveling so contact between us was somewhat slow, but I ended up purchasing a very well-rooted 18' Hummel's Sunset. I was hoping to get my hands on a cutting and didn't expect to find something of the maturity available. It was $18.00. A bargain. I would have never found one of this size here and they're going for higher prices elsewhere online, so needless to say I feel very lucky. So thanks, Norma, for locating a source and kindly passing along her information. I received the plant today and it looks great. To those of you who are looking for a HS, I don't know if she has any more larger plants, but she did tell me she sold HS cutting for $0.75. I would assume those are unrooted at such a low, low price. My new Hummel's Sunset has two trunks.(I've included a link with a picture of it). I would like to separate these. They connect right at the soil line. 1) I'm concerned about cutting them in half and letting the 'wounds' callous over, because it's already been bare-root for a week and I'd like to plant it ASAP. 2) I'm concerned about cutting them in half in fear both plants will not heal properly/rot, since this won't be a relatively clean operation like pruning. 3) I've considered leaving all the roots with the dominate trunk, cutting the other half off above the soil line (so I could plant the rooted one immediately), and just trying to root the whacked off trunk in some grit. But I have trouble rooting leaves in this climate and really want to save both trunks. Any help would be very much appreciated! I know this information is all over these forums, and I looked for quite a while, but sometimes the specifics you need are buried in some seemingly unrelated thread. Thanks everyone. Gray Here is a link that might be useful: My Hummel's

W, You can do that, certainly. I wouldn't take a chance on it being cold hardy until I have more pads to experiment with. And give it as much light in the winter as you can and infrequent waterings. If you can't give it much light, don't water it but perhaps once - if you water it without adequate light, you'll get etiolated growth, and I really hate it when that happens to the Platyopuntia - they're such a rewarding subtribe! Sharon, That's entirely dependent on the species you have...as you likely know, there are many which would grow in your yard. Have you tried a pad of yours outside? They're a lot more hardy than I thought, and if you can keep it covered with snow or hay they're even hardier. The Opuntia polyacantha here has faced -10F/-15F (it was covered with snow then, though) and is growing well now.