Saturday, July 15, 2017

New lithops 2017 - Part 1 (14 pics)

This year I feel like focusing more on lithops again. Needless to say, it means new acquisitions and more sowing later this year. Do I still have room for that? I do. How?! I am just as surprised as you are. Sometimes the windowsill feels like a plant-growing Tardis. The trick is to use small pots and plant as many plants as possible in each of them. If I only have one small plant of a certain species I would never give it a container all for itself. How wasteful is that! It can share it with at least one more plant. And they can be joined by others if necessary. I'm not a nursery and I have good records of what I grow so there's no need to separate everything.

I've bought some lithops and conophytums at the fair in Essen lately. The conophytums are still more or less in sheaths but the new lithops are ready for pictures. I think with the new purchases I have been favoring white-flowering species more than usual. Mainly because they are a challenge for me. Somehow I have difficulties growing them. By buying well-grown specimen the task becomes "keep them in good shape" rather than "get them into a good shape", which should be feasible.

For example, here are some L. karasmontana. I really like the yellow-orange kind and so I ended up with 4 of those. Neat shapes!

C227 Lithops karasmontana ssp. karasmontana v. karasmontana (syn. jacobseniana) 



C327 Lithops karasmontana ssp. karasmontana v. karasmontana (syn. mickbergensis) MG1631.3



Lithops karasmontana ssp. karasmontana v. karasmontana (syn. mickbergensis)



Lithops karasmontana ssp. karasmontana v. karasmontana 'Top Red'



Lithops marmorata



C214 Lithops marmorata v. elisae



Some L. hallii and L. julii look so similar you can barely see the difference.

Lithops hallii MG1596.9



Lithops julii ssp. fulleri 



Of course I could not walk past beautifully grown L. lesliei and L. aucampiae

C302 Lithops lesliei ssp. burchellii



Lithops lesliei



Lithops aucampiae 'red wine' 

Lithops pseudotruncatella ssp. groendrayensis were so fine I got three.



C069 Lithops pseudotruncatella ssp. volkii   



C071 Lithops pseudotruncatella ssp. dendritica (syn. pulmonuncula)

This is just part 1 of the new lithops introductions. I will post more pictures soon :)

11 comments:

  1. I try to avoid different plants in one pot as I find even the same species do not grow at the same time. I have not heard of 'Red Wine'. I have some aucampiae which are odd. Please see the last photo http://succulentsundae.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/more-new-lithops-heads.html

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    1. In my experience as long as they are all lithops they can grow together. I agree that there might be a slight timing difference but not as big to cause troubles. Also, I really don't have the luxury of individual potting XD

      About the "red wine", that's what was on the label. I got it because of the color and shape and noticed the name on the label only later at home.

      An open window aucampiae, huh? Nice! You should cultivate that :)

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  2. Unfortunately I only have one aucampiae that looks like that. I am on the lookout for another.

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    1. I believe François Hoes had this type of aucampiae. Not as proper cultivar but as a selection of plants. He called it "open window" or something. He doesn't sell seeds officially but you still could ask him via email.

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  3. Thanks. Tony Irons gets his seed. I will check it out.

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  4. Greetings Earthlings and Lithops Lovers!
    In therms of the question single potting or crowded, i watched this documentery about conophytums and lithops(with Vic Knight)
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1D5ADglMk
    (i hope it´s ok to post this link here)an old recording but very good informations tho. He mentions that when crowded potting, the plants stimulate each other through root-hormone production(13.05min.-mark.)
    this was said about conophytum cuttings.
    at the 16.54min.-mark you can see a lot different lithops growing together and they doing pretty well too if you ask me :)
    This convinced me to try this for my plants, ordered 16x16x10cm pots and repotted BUT if this fails i change strats back to single pots, like Rika said, own expirience is best:)
    Not sure about karasmontana with others yet,so they stay among themselves for now.

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    1. Unless you live in Greece and have a greenhouse you will kill your plants if you use such big pots ;) While it might be beneficial to grow several plants in one pot the pot should stay small. You can grow 8 plants in a 5cm pot and it will work well (you would need to grow at least 30 plants in each 16cm pot for them to have a chance in terms of water but more problems will come from that). As soon as the pot is bigger you will overwater no matter how much you try not to. Then some of the plants will be wrinkled and others not (because they all have different growing timing) and then you will water and half of them will stretch and die. The other half will rot from all the dead tissue and moisture around them and in the end none will survive a year. You need to plant your plants so that you have maximum control. There is no control in a big pot. You can try growing them in a big pot but it will not work, that's guaranteed :)

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  5. Love at first sight :X
    C071 Lithops pseudotruncatella ssp. dendritica (syn. pulmonuncula)
    pure fractal :)

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  6. When potting in pure pumice do you not find the water drains through straight away? I find mine shriveling more so as if the pumice simply doesn't allow enough water even when watered deeply. Still I see shrivels.

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    1. When I water I normally see the changes on the plants within a day. If the plant continues shriveling there's something wrong with the roots. Either they are not well developed (yet) or they rot due to frequent watering. Normally when watered the pot is heavy. If I pick it up after a couple of days and it is still heavy it means there is still moisture inside. Maybe the pumice you use is burnt too much and the stone surface is too smooth. Normally watered pumice stones get dark because the pores are full of water. Does yours do that?

      Regular shrivels when it's hot are fine but if the plant does not absorb any water at all you should check the roots... Watered pumice is not dry after just one day (unless it's some decorative pumice with no pumice sand/particles inside, just big smooth stones like quartz) and the plant should be able to absorb water within one or two days just fine.

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