KOOSKIA - Cacti, those spiny, tough-looking plants that grow in some of the most formidable climates in the world, aren't nearly as hardy as one would think.

Berne Jones of Kooskia says he can leave hundreds of them untended in his greenhouse for weeks at a time and they will survive, but even those that originated in the mountains of Peru can take only so much cold.

They don't like being wet and cold at the same time; they sunburn and they're finicky about their soil.

Add to that, one doesn't stroll casually through the crowded greenhouse or something will almost certainly reach out and stab you. Some spines stuck in the skin can be dug out by his wife with a sewing needle, but the barbed ones just have to stay there until they are gradually absorbed by the body.

It's worth the risk, however, once you see the blooms that hooked Jones on raising cacti 37 years ago.

They range from white to yellow, hot pink and purple, and pale green to an almost neon red-orange to rusty brown with maroon undertones.

Some of the flowers are tiny, a fraction of an inch in diameter, while one of Jones' favorites is easily 6 inches across.

"That's the reason I grow them," he says. "For the flowers."

Some bloom only once a year, but others have new flowers monthly. A spectacular flower will send him in search of its seed with which he can start the painstaking process of growing a new plant. He has seed pods collected from the breaks of the Salmon River, the badlands of Wyoming, and from Canada to the heights of the Andes.

Jones is a retired biochemist. His most recent academic work before retiring 10 years ago and moving with his wife, Holly Jones, to several acres along Battle Ridge Road south of Kooskia, was researching the enzymes that are active during the malting of barley and brewing beer.

While earning a degree at Washington State University many years ago, he and Holly discovered Idaho. "When we could afford a car, we would go camping and stuff. The first time I saw Kooskia, I decided this is where I wanted to be."

It took a U-Haul to bring all the cacti to their new home. It includes a nearby 18-foot by 24-foot greenhouse that is kept barely above freezing in the winter with a small 1,500-watt electric heater, the type that might be used to warm a cold corner of the house.

Nearby on the west-facing hillside property is a wooden table full of pots that don't require supplemental heat. It has an angled plastic cover that can be raised and lowered to keep the plants from getting too wet when it's cold, yet exposes them to sun when the fog lifts over the Clearwater River below.

Of the 1,000 to 2,000 plants in the greenhouse, perhaps three died over the winter, Jones says.

The greenhouse can reach 130 degrees in the summer, even with the windows open. But if the couple wants to take the summer off, they can leave for two months, come back and give the cacti a little water and they start growing again.

"If you were growing sweet corn, the raccoons would have them before we got back."

As a general rule, he waters the plants every two weeks in the middle of the day during the summer months. The timing allows the soil he mixes himself to drain and any moisture on the plants has time to evaporate. If water remains on the plants, they can rot.

Cacti are designed to suck up a lot of water quickly. "They are like big sponges with prickly outsides."

As far as he knows, the fleshy thorny cactus are all edible once the spines are peeled off. But the inside is full of green slime, with a green vegetable odor. "It's the smell that turns me off."

As for the story that people can save themselves by drinking water from the inside of a cactus, "That's bull crap," he says. The slime might provide some moisture, and some wild animals are known to dine on cacti, but sticking a straw through the thick skin would likely only net a straw clogged with slime, he says.

Cacti go dormant in the winter. Because of that, he waters them only in early September, mid-October and New Year's Day and not again until they put out buds in the spring. This year it was the middle of March.

He doesn't often give them away.

"You have to have a greenhouse or something like that," to successfully grow cacti, he says. "You cannot grow them in your house."

The exception is a "leaf cactus" that comes from the Central America where it grows in the duff that falls into the crotches of trees. Those don't tolerate cold well, so they spend a couple of Idaho's coldest months in the Joneses' house.

He doesn't give away a lot of plants because 95 percent of people won't follow his growing instructions, Jones says. Cacti require a lot of sun, and just sitting in a window doesn't do the job. There, they will get misshapen and pointy on top and won't bloom.

His hobby started while working as a professor of plant science at the University of Manitoba in Canada. A list came across his desk of seeds that another academic was willing to give away. It included several species of cacti.

He was interested, but in his first attempt, everything died. "I thought I could do better, and I worked out a method of growing them."

The problem wasn't germination, but that the new plants grow so slowly that for the first year and a half, they're extremely susceptible to fungus.

Easier than starting them from seed is to cut off the top, let it lie in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks to scab over, then put the cut piece in his homemade soil. It will put out baby plants around the edge that within a few months can be popped off and planted individually.

He also grafts plants because some have poor roots. He takes one with a strong root system, cuts off the top and bevels the edges of the bottom part. He then takes a cut piece he wants to graft to it, bevels its edges and places it on top of the rooted piece, lining up their conducting tissues. A rubber band holds the two pieces in place until they grow together, usually within about a week.

Grafted plants don't live as long as those grown naturally, however, Jones says.

At one time, he wanted to obtain every species of the genus echinocereus, a name that means "spiny candle," and is known for its large, showy flowers. But he soon found it wasn't that simple. "Everybody who goes to Arizona wants to name (a cactus) after themselves."

For this reason, some species have up to 200 different names and some were described as long ago as the 1840s and no one knows even whether they still exist, Jones says.

Now his only requirement is that the plant have a flower he enjoys.

While the cacti - even he occasionally calls them "cactuses," he admits - are special to him, the rest of the hillside also is a testimony to his love of growing things.

The Joneses have a small garden with the usual household staples, muskmelons, and dozens of trees, many of them grafted with multiple varieties, like the five or six pluots, a hybrid of a plum and apricot, on a single trunk. The orchard also has about 30 varieties of plums, a dozen of apples, sweet and sour cherries, grapes and other fruits.

It's not the production of fruit that entices him, but the adventure of trying a new variety, creating a successful graft and even an occasional failure. He's not had luck with peaches, he says regretfully.

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Lee is a retired Tribune reporter who writes an occasional garden column for Close to Home. She may be contacted at sandra.lee208@gmail.com.