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Great article, thanks for the information... It fits with all of our cactus experiences. I'm also growing cacti in Zone 9b - I keep mine potted as an outdoor specimen collection - in this way I control the amount of sun and frost they are exposed to.
Another cactus that is very easy to grow is 'Astrophytum' (common name is Bishop's Mitre). They need lots of light and very little water... indoors they can take a lot of neglect. Outdoors, they can take the full sun in Zone 9b and low maintenance. They produce yellow flowers every year in June/July
'Invalidreality' was asking about soil composition for cacti.
Soil. needs to be fast draining to prevent stem & root rot. You can buy special purpose soil from DIY/garden centers, or add pearlite, pumice or sand to a potting mixture to increase drainage.
You also talked about the problems with growing Memsebs (Lithops, Baby's Toes, Split Stones etc). I have had the same problems with rot and trying to figure out the correct watering schedule. I began a thread about Lithops on the Cacti & Succulents list and was advised that the traditional cactus watering schedule does not work for these plants. These need to be watered sparingly during fall & Spring. I'm trying this schedule on the remains of my lithops collection to see what happens (no deaths so far). The following blog link was also really helpful for these plants. http://www.lithops.info/
My next attempt to a 'short' article will be to write about cacti next time... but I am less familiar with what's what in cacti. Agree that Astrophytums do tend to be easy, though that species is one of the easiest.
