Hardy Tropicals UK

I don't know what cactus this is. It's in the ground and was completely unprotected last winter and even the Beast from the East didn't touch it.

The bud appeared some 3 weeks ago as a fuzzy ball, and today I woke up to this

it did extremely well to get through last winter even in LONDON. Looks like it will be a super flower when it opens. How
tall and how old is it please.

It's 18" (46cm) tall. Not sure how old, I bought it as a tiny cutting a few years ago and grew it in pots, it pupped a lot so I split it into two plants and planted them in the ground last year. The one in the picture is one column with small pups coming out of the base now, the other one has a lot of pups and branches.

Since the winter it has put on 5-6" of height.

In the winter I took a picture of it with a snow cap covering the tip (must have deleted it by now). The snow was fluffy and the spines long, so the snow cap was resting on the spines and not touching the flesh much, which may have helped protect it.

Its lovely. Isn't in a grit bed rather than directly in the ground? I thought you said in other threads you has plants struggling with wet heavy soil.

I put grit in the planting hole and make it relatively deep.

It will be a super flower when it opens!
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