Who says roses are the only suitable Valentine's Day gift? Cacti and succulent lovers offer a different opinion.

For starters, who wouldn't love to receive a gift that lasts for months and months, or even years for that matter? The answer is a living cacti or succulent plant.

For the holiday, these should be in suitable containers. If necessary, you can wrap the container in Valentine's paper. Or make a trip to a fabric store, and choose a suitable print.

Another solution is to buy a separate heart-shaped basket for holding the cacti or succulent. You could also take a plain woven, wicker, or wooden basket and stencil it with appropriate holiday motifs. You might also choose to paint part of the basket red or tie red ribbons around the handle.

I can't think of a better gift than a cacti or succulent dish garden. For the holiday, I would recommend the designer cactus gardens if they are available in your area. These are premium planters that are especially decorative, and are so much nicer than ordinary plastic.

If the designer lines aren't available in your area, look for ones in decorative terra cotta pots. They are sold in a variety of different shapes and motifs. I saw one in the shape of a sunburst that was just gorgeous.

Besides cactus and succulent dish gardens, you could create a stunning windowbox of cacti and succulent plants for indoor or outdoor use. These can also be decorated for the holiday with suitable bows or wrap, which can be removed once the holiday is over. If you choose to use a windowbox, just leave the plants in their original pots. Set the containers inside the box. In case you haven't noticed, windowboxes are all the rage now.

If I had to choose just one perfect gift for Valentine's Day, it would be a heart-shaped living succulent wreath. These are available from Cacti.com.

The holiday is a special time, so you may want to buy a special pot and create a cactus or succulent garden as a gift. In that case, there are so many kinds of nice suitable containers.

So far as the plants themselves, a number are especially nice for this winter holiday. Let's start with the ever-popular flowering kalanchoe. For Valentine's Day, the red-flowering seem especially festive. Yet, white and pink blooming ones would also work very nicely indeed.

This time of year you can buy all sorts of flowering cacti, especially the colorful grafted ones. All of these are suitable for Valentine's gifts.