As a quick disclaimer, this is not my type of garden. However, I'm realising over the years, that not everybody prefers my type of garden. Our friends aren't overly-enthusiastic gardeners, yet they were keen to explore something a little different than the usual flax, cordylines and lilli-pilli hedges that abound with new homes.

They wanted to highlight this red wall at the very front of the house so I suggested that they invest in some Silver Torch cactus, Cleistocactus strausii, a Bolivian native. The problem was sourcing cacti that were of a decent size worthy of making an immediate impact. Silver Torches can be bought at some local nurseries but they are so small they would have hardly made an appearance over the rim of the container, plus they want $20+ for each one.

So you can imagine that sourcing three of these beauties at a worthwhile size was not going to be cheap. And not surprisingly as they're not the fastest growers. While they can get up to 3m high it will probably take a few decades - depending on conditions - to get there.

Fortunately, I had driven past a house a few weeks earlier and noticed that they had a few clumps of Silver Thorns in their ramshackle front garden. So I mentioned this to my friends who then went and knocked on the door and graciously asked begged for some divisions, if possible.

To their amazement the owner was happy to dig them up and repot them and only charged them $30 for all three. In fact, this gardener was ecstatic that someone had found something in her garden that was worthwhile and was more than happy to oblige. It was a win-win for both parties and all because my friends had risked to ask the question.

Six months later all three of them are doing fine, albeit one of them has a kink. But apart from that, there's no holding these beautiful cacti back. They will complement this colour scheme even if it fades or peels over the years.

It just goes to show that it does pay to ask. If my friends had sourced these from a nursery at this size they could have been paying hundreds of dollars. Yet because they asked they saved a packet.