Just having cacti around and looking at them is well worth the effort and enough reason to cultivate them. The plants themselves are beautiful and the flowers can certainly rival other houseplants in their beauty. There are some cacti such as Lobivia, Rebutia and Parodia, and of course lots of others that are very easy for even the novice to grow. There are a lot of species that actually place very little demands on us. We need to have conditions in our home that will most closely resemble the natural habitat of the cacti and care for them very well.
Most cacti thrive in an area with very dry periods and light rainfall.
The epiphytic cacti of the wet rain forests in Central and South America are exceptions as they do not undergo a dry season. The cacti will store up water in the fleshy tissues of stems, branches, leaves and roots. There is a thick outer skin covering leaves that are reduced to mere spines and the smallest possible surface areas are factors that minimize evaporation from these plants even when in direct sunshine. There is a rest season for cacti when they can withdraw into the ground. During this resting time very little needs to be done against their being dry because their growth has stopped.