The cacti-watching-the-sunset is funny. I like to see them thus backlit. OK, that lens flare is ... well ... somehow even interesting, given the place where it sits. As if there were another little light source of its own. But I feel there is a bit too much sky in that photo.
Please tell us why the making of the first was so interesting. The photo as such does not tell.
The second has its merits for me, who I am a sucker for backlit plants of all kinds, but I think it is lacking a bit in the composition department. There's too much to be seen, it is too busy. A zoom or, if that wasn't possible, a crop in pp might help. I feel I could do well without the entire top part that includes the sky. If it is the spikes you want to show, there are some (and backlit at that) at the bottom, too.