RHS Practical Cactus and Succulent Book
How to Choose, Nurture, and Display more than 200 Cacti and Succulents
Fran Bailey & Zia Allaway, with Christopher Young and the RHS · DK, 2019
The one book on this shelf where we could verify the table of contents page by page — and the only one with explicit caution notes in the profiles.
What's actually in it
- Designing with Plants (p.8) — character, scale, colour, texture, choosing containers, bringing it together.
- Plant Projects (p.24) — twelve, including broken pot planter, hanging basket, sand terrarium, succulent globe, indoor window box, hypertufa pot, indoor rockery, floating terrarium garden and leaf propagation display.
- Plant Profiles (p.74) — cacti pp.76–125, succulents pp.126–181, arranged by genus.
- Care and Cultivation (p.182) — general care, propagation and grafting (p.200), problem solving (p.210).
- Every profile gives temperature range in °C and °F, light, watering, feeding, compost, flowering, propagation, common problems and pests, height and spread.
- Caution lines are used — for example "Plant is toxic if eaten" on Cleistocactus, and "Wear cactus gloves when handling this plant" on spiny species.
What it actually says
Specifics from inside the book — so you can judge whether it's telling you anything you don't already know.
- Hard temperature ranges in both °C and °F, with cold tolerance made conditional on dry soil — the detail that actually keeps a cactus alive over a British winter. Ariocarpus retusus survives −10°C if the compost is dry; Astrophytum tolerates short spells below freezing on the same condition; Epiphyllum wants 6–24°C and 11–14°C in winter.
- Watering specified by measured depth of dry compost, never by calendar. Water when the top 2cm is dry through spring and summer; for others, let the top 1cm dry between waterings; keep plants drier in winter with a light watering once a month.
- One potting mix used throughout, stated as a recipe: a 50:50 blend of John Innes No. 2 and 4mm grit.
- Explicit CAUTION lines in the profiles — "toxic if eaten" on the Cleistocactus species, "wear cactus gloves when handling this plant" on the spiny ones — plus RHS Award of Garden Merit designations on qualifying species including Echinocactus grusonii and Astrophytum myriostigma.
- Twelve projects with real measurements, from a broken pot planter and hypertufa pot to a floating terrarium garden — twine cut to 50cm lengths for the hanging basket, a 5cm pebble layer in the sand terrarium, 6cm and 12cm terracotta pots for the wreath.
Buy it if
You've killed a succulent by treating it like a house plant, and you want the actual rules.
Don't buy it if
Anyone wanting a general house plant book. This is cacti and succulents only — no aroids, ferns, palms or flowering house plants.
Where it falls short
Narrow by design. Only 12 projects. And although it does carry caution flags, we could not confirm that every toxic genus gets one — so treat the flags as a helpful signal, not a complete safety screen. Outdoor hardiness for the hardier succulents like Sempervivum in a UK garden isn't really its subject.
Who wrote it
Same team as the RHS house plant book — Fran Bailey and Zia Allaway — but the horticultural anchor here is Christopher Young, horticultural team leader of the Glasshouse at RHS Wisley and a member of the RHS Tender Ornamental Plant Committee. For tender succulents that is exactly the right expertise, and it shows in how specific the profiles are. Disclose: Bailey owns a shop that sells plants.
Where it was written
RHS-authored, RHS Award of Garden Merit designations throughout, temperatures given in both °C and °F. Christopher Young runs the glasshouses at RHS Wisley — the RHS involvement here is real, not a badge.
The facts
- AuthorFran Bailey & Zia Allaway, with Christopher Young and the RHS
- PublisherDK
- Published2019
- FormatHardback, 224 pages
- ISBN-13
9780241341148 - LevelBeginner to reference
Checked against publisher listings, UK retailers and library records in August 2026. If any of this is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.
Where to get it
Buying secondhand? Match the ISBN above — several books on this shelf have editions that look identical but aren't.