Lithops portraits 2018 (15 pics)

In case you haven't noticed I'm on vacation :)
Which means finally time to take care of my (mostly plant related) hobbies. And I don't have to tell you how much I enjoy the company of my cat. All of it is so relaxing. Playing with Mila, checking on the plants, napping with Mila, taking some plant pictures. It's the paradise on earth. I hurt my back recently (which sucks) but it gives me a legit excuse to just be lazy and enjoy myself.

Now I'm just gonna spam you with some Lithops photos :D

L. ruschiorum. Love their new faces.

L. marmorata. Very slow old leaf digestion.

L. marmorata 'Polepsky Smaragd'. Good shape and color is only possible by very careful watering.

L. localis. These guys start to stretch as soon as I start thinking of watering them. They are tiny but it's the only way to keep them alive.

L. aucampiae are more difficult than you think. I've killed a lot of them so far. This is a really nice specimen though.

L. bromfieldii v. mennellii. Love the texture.

L. lesliei ssp. burchellii (C302). Love the fluid pattern.

L. lesliei ssp. lesliei v. venteri. Nice and flat. Got them as adults in 2011.

L. lesliei ssp. lesliei v. venteri 'Ventergreen' (C001A). These are 7 year old seedlings.

L. lesliei ssp. lesliei v. lesliei 'Albinica' (C036A). Got them in a hardware store in 2012.

L. lesliei ssp. lesliei v. lesliei (grey form) (C008). Got them in 2010.

L. bromfieldii v. insularis (C042). I haven't had a very good experience with multiheaded plants in my environment. But L. bromfieldii are hard to kill so I gave it a try last year. It regenerated fine so it should be okay now.

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 :)

Lithops plant size: Part 1 (17 pics)

One of the most common questions I am asked is about the size of my lithops plants and pots. While the part about pots is easily answered - 5 x 5 cm and 8,5 cm deep - it doesn't exactly clarify how big the plants are. I'm always writing about "the smaller the better" under windowsill conditions but how small is "small" exactly?

After having grown lithops for 10 years it is very clear that in order to grow them successfully under my conditions they absolutely need to be small. If watered (or fed) slightly too much they will stretch into unhealthy shapes and choke on their leaves during regeneration. If a plant is grown from seed by me it will increase in size extremely slowly. If I buy a large adult plant it will reduce its size at least by half during the next 1 or 2 leaf changes and stay like this (unless it dies). To get to the exact size of the plants I grow, imagine a 5x5cm pot and then imagine 8 adult plants growing in it. Or let's say rather 4 two-headed plants which would be more accurate. That's the limit that works for me without them squeezing each other out of the pot. It doesn't mean I follow through with it though. Sometimes I don't want to mix different species in one pot. Sometimes a plant looks great when it's presented individually. They do grow better I believe when potted in clusters but that's a story for another time.

According to various sources, L. aucampiae, L. pseudotruncatella, L. gracilidelineata and maybe L. hookeri belong to the larger species. And I'm talking about size of an individual head, not the ability to branch out. Let's see how this holds up on the windowsill.

I will measure the heads across the longest side. It will represent the plant size as of today, during active growth and regular water intake, not directly after regeneration when they are the smallest. I believe this is the average value even though they might increase in size a little bit until Fall (1-2 mm max).

The largest plants I have are Lithops gesinae v. annae (C078). They reach 2.2 cm consistently every year without any trouble regenerating and without any fertilizer or excessive watering. I've grown them for several years and it's always the same. I'd actually recommend them for beginners. My first plant came in 2008 when lithops were fairly new to me.

This below plant is two-headed and each head measures 2.2 cm.

As a contrast to that, L. gesinae v. gesinae (C207) are really small. The larger plant's head size is 1.3 cm while the smaller is 0.9 cm. It also seems to be a fixed value every year. They don't get bigger at all and are slow to regenerate.

L. aucampiae are considered large but on my windowsill they are no bigger than the regular L. lesliei (in fact some of my L. lesliei are larger than L. aucampiae). The largest plant I have is this L. aucampiae sp. at 1.9 cm. I got it from a gardening store rather bloated but it came back to this size after a couple of leaf changes and it works for it.

L. aucampiae 'Storm's Snowcap' (C392) plants I got from a specialized grower a couple of years ago measure 1.4 cm per head, which is the same size as my own 5 year old seedlings of L. aucampiae ssp. aucampiae v. aucampiae 'White Flower' (C002A). 1.4 cm is also the size of my L. aucampiae ssp. euniceae v. fluminalis (C054)

Let's check L. gracilidelineata. My mixed seedlings are from 2009 so you can say they are of adult size. I have 3 larger plants and 3 smaller. The larger plants measure 1.8 cm.

The smaller specimen are 1.4 cm.

Moving on to L. dorotheae, as they seem to be quite large. All the below are 1.7 cm

L. dorotheae de Boer

L. dorotheae (C300)

This L. dorotheae (C300) however is slightly smaller, measuring 1.5 cm across. It compensates with its 3 heads I guess.

I only have one L. olivacea v. olivacea (C055) so it's not exactly representative. The head size per se is not very large but this two-headed plant is massive all in all and occupies one pot by itself. Same as L. gesinae v. annae, it regenerates into the same size every year and maintains it without any help. The head size is 1.7 cm.

To sum things up, it seems that the average head size of larger specimen of lithops on the windowsill is around 1.7 cm. I will continue this topic and review the smaller plants next time. 

Spring is here! (28 pics)

It has been some time since I last updated and I must say it was mostly due to my disappointment with my inability to get rid of mites. No one likes to admit defeat. I am even losing my beautiful Anacampseros seedlings. Although I have so many it is not quite that dramatic. Lithops are unaffected which leads me to the conclusion that I might wanna go back to the roots and grow more lithops again, while reducing the amount of other, mite-friendlier plants. Speaking of "reducing", I am down 7 kilos and have reached my goal. Now I can fill myself up with chocolate again! :D

In other news, Mila has developed some food intolerances and gets super healthy hypoallergenic food these days. Unfortunately that's the food she finds rather yucky. She does not understand meat and meaty smells (where are those predator instincts?) so that I have to trick her into eating it with "fastfood" smells on top. Luckily there are grain-free treats and tasty liver cremes around to help me.

Back to the plants. Now that spring is here and the sun is shining almost all lithops have regenerated. Hopefully we will have a warmer and sunnier year. The plants are a bit too small and I think I need to fertilize. I normally don't do that. The conditions do not allow the plants to get bigger without losing their shape. I need to time it right or I'll have cucumbers instead of lithops in no time. Also, I really need to continue transplanting and putting things in order on the windowsill. Lots to do. But not today.

Let me first focus on positive things. I really need some motivation. Rather then whining about mites all the time here are the pretty pretty lithops plants that are doing great and show their fresh new faces. No claw marks yet this year! Forgive me the dust and cat hair on the plants. Pretend it is the "natural" look ;)

And by the way, if you click on a picture you will not only see it xxl size but also see the name of the plant in the file title.

And here are my own seedlings. Some of the youngest have grown 2 heads this winter.