From the editors. Cactus collectors used to put their pots tightly close to each other, mostly because of lack of space. But there are such things as alpine gardens, rock gardens, a miniature gardens and so on also exist in the world. People would like to see not just straight rows of plant pots, but 3D compositions that look like natural landscapes - miniature gardens.

Miniature gardens are not the most wide-spread way to keep plants indoors. Although potted together plants keep the soil moist longer and look highly decorative.

The compositions based on oppositions of colours are especially impressive as well as those with theme concepts, for example, imitation of different natural landscapes. Nevertheless, it is also important to know that the impressive compositions can be made not by using as many cacti genera as possible, but by right selection and matching.

While selecting the materials upon this topic we decided to divide them into three groups:

1. Dish gardens.
2. Miniature gardens.
3. Miniature gardens for open ground.

Each of the kind has its own peculiarities, conditions and rules, that can be figured out by experience. The authors will tell you about it by themselves.