A description of author´s achievements in the synthesis of natural products and their analogues, including partial syntheses of plant hormones gibberellins and antheridiogens, total syntheses of marine natural products nakienones A and B, and the preparation of analogues of a butenolide secondary metabolite, (-)-incrustoporin. Both classic and modern synthetic chemistry methods were employed; at that, undesirable reactivity was encountered, especially when highly reactive functionalities had to be accommodated on a relatively small matrix.