Returned to Organ Pipe Cactus after a difficult first attempt

My first attempt at Organ Pipe Cactus failed — spider mites in warm dry indoor conditions got hold of it and I didn't know what I was looking at until it was too late. I left it alone for a year before trying again.

The second attempt, with proper attention to watering sparingly and only in the active growing season, has been completely different. It's now thriving in a dry garden rockery or gravel bed and extremely long-lived with minimal intervention is on full display. flowering in late spring to early summer this year was a genuine reward for starting again. If you failed first time, the plant isn't the problem — the conditions probably were.