He brought a cutting from the "Queen of the night" to Erfurt, which had been given to him by the king who was more than pleased with Friedrich's work. Even if there were some obstacles the little company very soon developed to be an important horticulture company. Apart from his work Friedrich Adolph Haage still had enough time to occupy himself with the various species of the cacti. People began to owe Friedrich respect. He got the reputation to be a distinguished authority with a collection known to be the most extensive and the most entire collection of it's kind and time. Besides his success as a cultivator and businessman, he had a very sensitive feeling for promising innovations. He was one of the first gardeners in Germany, who used an advertisement in the newspaper as marketing activity. Some experts say, that he was one of the founders of the commercial mail order business at horticultural companies. His first dispatch list came out in 1824 - two years after having founded the company. You can measure the success and importance of the business of Friedrich Adolph Haage jun. if you take a look at the visitors, who came and took a look at the company. Goethe, Liszt or Humboldt are just some of the big names which visited Kakteen Haage. Until today you can find his traces in modern horticulture. A lot of the founders of the big German gardening companies, which until today have an important name, went through the training of Friedrich Adolph Haage (for example: Benary, Weigelt etc). He was very active and well known in public life. Together with other gardeners from Erfurt he founded the gardening association of Erfurt. Due to his special contributions he became the honorary director of this association later on. After his death in September 1866 a monument was erected at the forest "Steigerwald" in Erfurt.

His son and successor Gustav Ferdinand had a very difficult start. Due to the building of the railway in 1870 he had to give up his grounds and had to move in front of the fortress of the town. Even if he had enough space there were other problems on the way. The grounds around the fortress were liable to the so called restrictions of Rayon. Every structural change, deposit of earth or the installation of a stove required a licence. A very amusing historical document of this time is the correspondence of the so called "oven war" (Ofenkrieg), which contained the approval of the installation of an oven. The German emperor had the last word on the subject, but some days before the decision was made the fortress status of Erfurt was cleared. The confusion these actions caused were very negative for the business. That's why Gustav Ferdinand Haage retired from the business soon and handed the company over to his son, who was born in April 1859.

Ferdinand Friedrich Adolf enjoyed extensive training, for example in England. During his free time he was an ambitious racing cyclist and he won a title as world master. He carried out the ideas of his grandfather Friedrich Adolph and he specialised himself in the cultivation of cacti. He was very successful using his ancestor's contacts and started selling his cacti into foreign countries. Represented on every important show in Germany as well as in foreign countries Ferdinand was always good for big sensations. He wanted to expand and that's why he moved again. In 1903 he found an appropriate ground, in the "Andreasflur", where the company still is located today. The cultures were enlarged with the help of new greenhouses. In 1914 all trade relationships were destroyed by WW I which also took away his eldest son from him, dying in battle.

The younger son Walther had to waive his botanical studies and learned the profession of a gardener. During his wandering years through Stuttgart, Belgium and Sweden he enlarged his horizon and built up new contacts, with the aim of rebuilding a company, damaged and weakened by WW I. Although inflation made lives difficult he financed some expeditions to America in order to collect new cacti. His work with "cacti hunters" such as Fric, Buxbaum, Lembke, Viereck or Backeberg became famous. Very soon the name Haage again stood for a large and special assortment and Walther now sold cacti all over the world. Walther Haage was very successful as author, too. His first book "Kakteen im Heim" (also aviable in English: "cacti at home") was published in different languages printed as a big edition. After his father died in May 1930, Walther Haage took over managing the company and converted it into a competitive seed cultivation business. In the Third Reich the "non-Aryan" cactus had to live underneath the tables. With a high rate of losses the cacti collection was carried.
WW II destroyed the base of the business and every connection into foreign countries. Due to large orders of the former director Prof. Baranov of the botanic garden of Leningrad, who was stationed as a commandant of the Red Army in Erfurt, the cacti collection could survive the hard years after the war. He recognized the risks for the collection, which was threatened by the hard winter. After a while some lorry loads of coal reached the company.
The development of the society in the former GDR created a lot of problems. After the means of production were rationed at the beginning, represses against the owner and his crew became wicked. In the year 1961 the press of the GDR "celebrated" Walther Haage as one of the last private gardeners who had to be taken on state participation. In 1972 the company was entirely taken over by the state within just one week. The company and the leadership had been lost to the state. Walther, who was still working as the manager of the seed cultivation, carried on influenced the development of the company. At the same time he started writing of books again. Works as "Das Praktische Kakteenbuch" (" Practical book on cacti") or "Schöne Kakteen richtig pflegen" ("How to correctly care for beautiful cacti") were written. His wife Lotte gave him a lot of support during this time. Until today the encyclopaedia "Kakteen von A bis Z" ("Cacti from A to Z") is a widely spread lexicon for cacti friends - and it's very hard to get a hand on. For his work Walther Haage became honorary member of the German cacti association and in 1988 the "golden cacti" was awarded to him. This award was handed over by the deceased princess Gracia Patricia of Monaco for special results in cacti cultivation. Walther Haage died at the age of 91, shortly before the 170th jubilee of the company in 1992. You could meet his wife Lotte at the age of 95th in the greenhouses, where she was looking after "her" sawed out plants and taking care of the mother plants. Today her life is more quiet than before, but she is always interested in getting news about the company.

After the East German Government had taken over the company, its new official name was "VEG Saatzucht Zierpflanzen - Brigade Kakteenzucht". The management of the brigade was taken on by Walther's son Hans-Friedrich Haage in 1972.He and his wife Liebgund had finished their studies at horticulture at the Humboldt university at Berlin. Due to the cacti boom in the 70's a lot of investments were made, five greenhouses of 600 m² were built and the production was enlarged. Hans-Friedrich lead the brigade Kakteenzucht (cacti breeding) trough the heights and depths of the GDR-epoch. A lot of contacts were made with the eastern block, for example with Dr. Georg Wolsky (Botanical Garden Leningrad). The company still had contacts with the so called non-socialistic economic area. That was sometimes dangerous but it secured a certain supply of innovations from the "West". As the wall fell in 1989, contacts revitalized quickly, for example with the group of the German cacti association of Kassel or Würzburg. International contacts were revived and took on their original place.
Even for Walther Haage it was a big pleasure to experience that his son could transport the company back into family property. The return began for Hans-Friedrich Haage with a jump into the cold water of the unfamiliar open market economy. A big help for the new beginning were cacti friends from all over the world. A lot of them still know the name Haage as a company with a special meaning. After three years it appeared that the decision to follow the tradition of the mail ordering was right. A lot of our customers and friends counted on the reputation for first class seed- and plant goods. Nowadays Kakteen-Haage is established again and one can see the plants, just like the old tradition, on a lot of shows and exhibitions in Germany.

In 1996, as the company had existed for 175 years, Ulrich Haage took on the management of the company from his father Hans-Friedrich. In the tradition of the family he had finished his training, which had lead him trough different German companies between Kiel and Stuttgart, to Belgium, Guatemala, England (Royal Botanic Garden, Kew) and to the Suisse collection of succulents in Zurich.