thanks for your comments!
It's true that I have a thing for unusual colors and shapes, but at the same time, I especially love pure species without any "unnatural" manipulation. With regard to unusual shapes and colors, I like spontaneous mutations more than manipulations. And for some reason, I don't like grafted plants but want them to grow with their own roots (although I agree that grafting is a very useful method in many cases).A few of my large-sized cacti were already quite large when I bought them. Thus, they have been grown in optimal light conditions etc. for some time before they came to Finland. That's why some of my cacti show better growth in lower parts and then the growth has changed thinner simply due to much poorer light conditions. This is shown, for example, in the winter picture above (columnar cactus Pilosocereus). The growth during the time the cacti have been in my care, is the same all the time. I have been living in this house for 7 years now, and comparing to my previous house, the cacti do not get as much sun as previously. They are on a window facing south-west, but due to large trees and wide window frames, they only get full sunshine for about 4-5 hours per day in the growing season (and there are also many cloudy and rainy days here in Finland).
It's true that I have a tendency to use too big pots especially for small plants. But I have thought that since I do not overwater the plants, it may not be a problem. In fact, I have never killed any of my small cacti in too large pots, although many of them are very sensitive to overwatering (for example, Astrophytum asterias). I use standard cactus soil (much sand) and often also add perlite to the soil. I have also noticed that black pots become very hot when sun is shining, and with larger pots, small cacti have more soil between their roots and the hot side of the pot as an insulation.
