I recently came across a post on another page, in which a person had written to a cactus grower about these glued-on flowers and copied/pasted the grower's reply. The grower agreed the practice is ridiculous, and they do it only because the 'big box stores' they supply (presumably Lowes, Home Depot, etc) demand it. The reason? Those decorated cacti sell 3x better than the plain ones! The strawflowers are bright and cute and dupe the average, plant-clueless customer into buying the plant.
