You either love them or hate them. And if you love them, chances are you'll become a collector of these juicy, spiky plants just as Lisa Meiring has done, after lifting the grass at her Royal Ascot townhouse to make way for a cactus garden.
Meiring was inspired by Tom Kinniburgh's collection of cacti, which he started when he was six years old.
He has now converted his garden into a small business on a busy road in suburban Table View. The outside wall has "Rockspider's Namib Garden" artfully inscribed on it, and when you come upon it, it's quite a surprise.
Along with around 3 000 kinds of succulents, he has a variety of cacti, crystals and sculptures, which will have you intrigued.
They are intricately variable, with or without spikes, symmetrical and asymmetrical, in their different shades of greys and greens, some speckled to boot.
Meiring had called Kinniburgh in to help her transplant a cactus that a friend of hers gave her, called a mother-in-law's seat - a particularly spiky cactus.
"He said he had leather hands. And then we got
talking."
When Meiring first moved into her townhouse, it was new and there was no garden. She cleared out the builders' rubble, made a bed along the sides and had a patch of grass in the middle.
"But then, I thought, how do I keep grass cut? There's no access (except through the lounge) for a garden service."
She lifted the grass - all but a small patch for her dog.
Inspired by Kinniburgh, she decided to create a desert-type garden, softening the edges with her fir trees, shrubs and creepers, which will grow and soften the stark walls.
Black plastic sheeting was laid down (to stop the weeds from popping up - "what a pleasure", she says) and stones were laid on top. Sleepers demarcate different areas of the garden. All her cacti are in pots, placed on the sleepers and stepping stones.
"When I have visitors, I move the pots out the way," she says.
The beauty is that in the dry times we've had and will have, cacti require very little water, and even less care. The cacti have so inspired her youngest son that he is now potting them to sell. And when her eldest son needed to raise money for a camping trip, she started potting cacti in attractive pots and he sold them.
Cacti have become her hobby.
"Every day I see something new in them," she says.
Cacti and succulents can have the most magnificently delicate flowers - some of which last for only a day, says Kinniburgh who found, as a child gardener, they were "the only plants I could keep alive".
Because Kinniburgh spends much of his time travelling, he needed plants which took care of themselves. His collection grew, and he started the Namib garden.
Helping him is Wilson Mgengetho, who is a font of knowledge about indigenous succulents and their uses.
There are many, many cacti collectors, says Kinniburgh, and a brisk trade in the plants. The most avid collector he knows is an 11-year-old boy, who runs two businesses.
Kinniburgh has nurseries on farms in the Karoo, from where he replenishes his stocks. He estimates he has around 3 000 varieties, not all indigenous.
"I find the South American cacti grow well here because of the light spectrum, which is very blue," he says.
On his travels he collects rocks and crystals that will enhance the cacti. Once home, he spends "fun time" planting them in containers.
Cacti like river sand, he says, and the secret is in the drainage. Some will grow indoors - and they don't need much water - around one teaspoon a week.
"A little bit of water more often is good, and so is spraying them - a lot is absorbed through the leaves."
There's a big demand now for these "desert" gardens, sometimes just as part of a garden, and Kinniburgh does landscaping in between travelling in winter to London, where he owns an art gallery.
One attraction of cacti is the huge variety available - and their often sculptural shapes. Not to mention the fact, of course, that they're waterwise in a thirsty time.
With the water restrictions, some of them have become expensive items, he says. But if you start looking around, you'll find plenty of smaller cacti at reasonable prices.
Just be careful of the prickles when you transplant them.