My succulent life, delicious and spiky
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My first plant was a grafted cactus, a lot like the one in this picture. I got it at the local weekend market in Stockel, near our house in Belgium. It started a bit of an obsession with cacti, and succulents, that has stayed with me all my life.
When I look it up now, I see that it was a “moon cactus”, created from a red Gymnocalicium mihanowichii, grafted onto the hylocereus cactus. Thanks, Wikipedia! We had to leave my first cactus gardens behind when we moved back to NZ. I still miss them. |
My current family of succulents and cacti
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I am definitely no expert in succulent cultivation, but I love their company. They are such weird and lovely plants! And, of course, I have been planning to draw them and their relatives for quite some time.
The design
Working from the actual plants, and from many photos, I built up a collection of sketches to start my repeat, then coloured them, combined them into a bouquet, and drew in additional plants to fill out the composition.
