I wanted to take many more Lithops pictures today but in the bright sun most of the photos looked sort of overexposed. The best ones were those of Lithops dorotheae so here are this year's portraits. The one on the first pic has grown quite fat, which is rare for my plants, but has regenerated just fine. A strong plant. I have the others since 4 years already and I hope to be growing them for many more years.
Beautiful plants Rika. There are many great mesembs but Lithops are still my favorite. I really like the red lightning bolts on these. They do look very healthy. How often, in general, at this time of year are you watering? I'm always afraid I'm watering too little. I think it has something to do with deterioration of my potting mix. One of the advantages of your pumice only medium is that there is little to no deterioration. However, since I tend to under water now, I'm afraid it would be worse with such a fast drying medium such as pumice. But your success with just pumice is impressive, so I am going to try it with a few of my older plants. I'll keep you informed.
ReplyDeleteYes, lithops are amazing :) I have so many seeds to sow, so many more lithops species I want to grow!
DeleteI think I water them once every two weeks or so. This year we have a proper summer and I'm letting them get wrinkles every time before watering. Btw, I think I have you to thank for my recent mesemb flowers. Following your suggestion I'm watering them more to support the flower buds (as long as the weather allows it of course). Past years' flower losses were probably due to underwatering. :)
Oh please try with less valuable plants!! Pumice doesn't seem to work for everyone's growing conditions. I'd hate to be the cause of any plant losses...
Lithops dorotheae is my favourite Lithops. I have more than any other and just got two more. I do not like ' zorro'.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to grow more of them, too. They are quite variable in their appearance :)
DeleteBeautiful! I recently started some dorotheae C124 seeds, and hope that they survive and look like your pictures! Some of the seedlings are starting to look yellow/white, is it possible that they are under too strong a light?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your sowing!
DeleteYellow/white means too much sun.. They are burned/cooked, I'd say. But in every sowing there will be losses, it's normal :)
I've got a couple of pale green survivors, which I've moved to a shadier spot. Fingers crossed! :-)
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