Or “How to make nine out of one”.

I had my cactus for many years – at least 15 as far as I remember and no matter how badly I treated it, it grew and grew and grew.

In the end, it looked like this (sorry, I forgot to close the blinds this time):

The problem was that it was standing in that kitchen window and had become an immovable and unhandleable object which was likely to keel over soon.

So I decided to kill it but salvage some of the leaves (sorry, I forgot to close the blinds this time):

And now I have begun anew:

I’ve used more than 50 liters of fresh earth to fill these three flower boxes and even though I wore gloves I still have cacti spikes in my fingers…