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.

Lithops plant size: Part 3 (18 pics)

This is Part 3 of the Lithops size analysis. Please also see Part 1 and Part 2 for a review of bigger plants.

I have realized a long time ago that white-flowering lithops are difficult on the windowsill. They just need more light than I can provide. Such species as L. julii, L. hallii, L. karasmontana or L. salicola seem to stretch no matter how little water they get or they have troubles regenerating or both. Because of that I completely gave up on L. salicola. Just can't keep them from stretching. I still have some L. hallii but I'm slowly giving up. No, they do not stretch. But they just can't get out of old leaves. In the case of L. julii and L. karasmontana, I think, it is still possible to figure them out. And the key is plant size.

The below L. julii sp. has survived 5 years under my care and came down to this shape. It's round and short and, being an older plant, it even reaches 1.7 cm per head.

This L. julii ssp. fulleri v. brunnea (C179) has been in my care for 9 years now and is also 1.7 cm. It looks normal and healthy but unfortunately it has not regenerated this year at all. Sometimes lithops skip a year but it worries me nonetheless. Maybe it did skip a year. Or maybe it's dead inside. I believe smaller size should be better.

These are L. julii ssp. fulleri v. brunnea (C179) as well. I got them 2 years ago from my favorite grower and they measure only 1 cm, despite being adult plants.

Even a little bit of untimely watering can mess them up. If you have a plant that looks like the below that's already stage one of stretching. Strict diet right away should still be able to correct it but no guarantees. I've seen this often enough to not get my hopes up. 

You might think "But this plant is kinda small if you consider head size from the top. You just said small is fine." Well, that's the thing. L. julii just don't get big without stretching. You water them more and they stretch into a cucumber right away. To keep them short and flat to the ground you're sort of forced to keep the head size small. It's a balance and that's what makes it so difficult for me. How those two plants further above got to 1.7 cm without stretching and dying is truly a mystery.

L. karasmontana are the same. If I buy a bigger plant from a greenhouse nursery (full day of sunlight), then under my conditions (half day of sunlight) they will stretch after the first time I give water to them and so I end up not watering at all until the plant either dies or reduces its size. The below L. karasmontana ssp. karasmontana v. aiaisensis (C224) is such a case and I still have troubles keeping it short (the bigger head is 1.5 cm). I had two of them initially and one didn't make it. These days, if there is a possibility to see the plant before ordering it, I never go for anything large.

Here's a good size. L. karasmontana v. lericheana (C330), 1.2 cm.

This beautiful orange one with no name is 1.3 cm. It still had big chunks of old leaves attached a couple of weeks ago when I took this photo but worked its way through them by now. That's very late.

I understand L. hookeri can get rather large under greenhouse conditions. I have a bunch of them and I can keep them flat and well-textured only at a size of 1.3 cm. The goal is to have them look like brains :D

Now we come to the smallest plants on my windowsill, L. localis (former L. terricolor) and L. dinteri. L. dinteri are indeed considered the smallest among lithops in general so there's nothing much to tell. Mine are 1.1 cm.

L. localis however I have killed in bunches over the years. Now I grow several and they all uniformly measure 1.1 cm per head. This is the only size that keeps them from stretching. And even at such a tiny size they are having a really hard time regenerating! I'm still not giving water to the late ones.

To all you windowsill growers, keep your plants small and short. That's your main goal. It will not guarantee flowering, probably the opposite, but you will have good-looking and healthy plants for many years. Luckily, with lithops, leaves can be much more interesting than flowers.

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.