A furious mother has slammed B&Q after her son bought a £4 'blooming' cactus only to discover that the flowers were fake and had been glued on.

Emily Dennys, 41, visited B&Q's Longwell Green store in Bristol last month with her son Max, 13, and daughter Leila, 11.

Leila, who is a keen cactus collector, had begged Ms Dennys to buy one of her favourite plants that was labelled 'flowering'.

Emily Dennys has slammed B&Q after buying a £4 'blooming' cactus from the Longwell Green store in Bristol after she discovered that the flowers were fake and had been glued on. Pictured: Ms Dennys, 41, and her daughter Leila, 11

The family were stunned to discover that the delicate pink flowers had actually been stuck to the cactus using giant blobs of glue

Ms Dennys initially refused before older brother Max intervened and offered to buy the £4 plant as part of Leila's Christmas present.

But when the family returned home they were stunned to discover that the delicate pink flowers had actually been stuck to the cactus using giant blobs of glue.

Ms Dennys complained to the DIY store which admitted that artificial flowers had been added to the real cactus.

It later apologised about the plant being labelled in error as a real flowering cactus.

Ceramicist Emily is now urging green-fingered shoppers to be aware.

She said: 'It's mis-selling that it's sold as a real cactus with real flowers.

'It's not very environmentally friendly to be adding glue and it's instant gratification.

'Do we need to be producing glue and drying out flowers to stick on when the plant will actually produce real flowers?'

Ms Dennys complained to the DIY store which later admitted that the artificial flowers had been added to the real cactus

The mother-of-two added: 'My son bought it for Leila as a Christmas present. My daughter really wanted it as she collects loads of succulents and cacti.

'I'd said "no" for about the 57th time because she's always buying stuff and then Max just said "oh I'll buy it for her".

'When we got home she noticed that they were glued on - we were absolutely shocked.

'You can see the hard glue from a glue gun underneath the flower, I was absolutely aghast really.'

Emily first aired her grievances on social media where she wrote: 'Oh what a lovely flowering cactus.

'But wait, on further inspection once we had got it home, no it is a normal cactus with flowers glue gunned on! Seriously B&Q is this for real?'

The hardware giant later apologised about the plant being labelled in error as a real flowering cactus

Ms Dennys first took to social media with her complaint and is now urging green-fingered shoppers to be aware. Pictured: Label on the cactus

She was told that if she wished to discuss it further she would need to speak to a manager in-store where she could be offered the opportunity to return the plant for a refund.

Emily said: 'I replied saying I wasn't going to waste my time going back to the shop and that I was more concerned about the fact they were gluing on flowers.

'My stepmum who's lived in Spain for ten years said it's common practice and that she's sees it all over the place in Spain but I was pretty shocked that it was in B&Q.

'I just thought it wasn't very good practice, really, especially when it's in the garden centre part.

'I would say to other B&Q customers to just watch out.'

A B&Q spokesperson said: 'This was simply a case of an error with the labelling of the product, which in this instance missed reference to the artificial flowers.

'B&Q can confirm this has been rectified.'