Growing Lithops, year after year (9 pics)

Those of you who have tried growing adult Lithops know that the first year or two are crucial. The plant you bought might have been either too small and too weak, or too big, overfed and stretched or it just might not have liked your environment and died due to acclimation. I've been growing Lithops for over 10 years now, and the good news is - once a plant has survived those first 2 years and found its most efficient size and shape, it will just keep going. 

(You can find my detailed report on appropriate Lithops sizes and shapes - for windowsill conditions and all natural light - here, here and here.)

I have complained before that it was difficult for me to keep L. julii and L. karasmontana alive long. Looking back, it seems this was mostly because they tend to stretch. Getting a stretched Lithops back in shape is rarely successful. Getting a slightly stretched Lithops back in shape is possible but it takes a couple of years. And if it survives the process it'll be fine. In fact, once in shape it stays in shape.

I've had the below L. julii ssp. fulleri v. brunnea (C179) for 10 years now. This small round shape is, in my experience, the most "safe" one. Once my L. julii or L. karasmontana have it, they stay on course. Last year, it skipped regeneration, but regenerated just fine this year.

This is another example. I've had this L. julii since 2013 (bought in a hardware store). According to my photo records, it took the current shape around 2015 and kept it ever since.

The below two nameless L. julii are from the same hardware store bunch. However, after several stretched regenerations, they got into the round shape only this year. I'm hopeful they are now on the safe side. 

This orange L. karasmontana shares the same story. I bought it slightly stretched in 2015 but for the last couple of years, once it settled down, it's been doing great.

This L. karasmontana ssp. karasmontana v. aiaisensis (C224) has been in my care since 2011. Going strong.

Of course it is best to make sure the plant is short and small from the start. Since most of us order plants online from a list these days, without knowing what they look like, it's not that easy.

Here are some plants I could select myself when I bought them back in 2015.

L. julii ssp. fulleri v. brunnea (C179)

L. karasmontana v. lericheana (C330)

Another L. karasmontana v. lericheana, 6 heads, bought last year. Short as the heads are, it should be fine now.

Hand-selecting is not always a guarantee though. I picked these two last year, and this year, one is very late with its leaf change. If it survives it will be late next year as well. I doubt anything good will come out of it.

As always, sorry for all the cat hair in the pictures.

Spring is on its way, they feel it (9 pics)

Finally, after months of darkness, we've had 2 weeks of sun (and temperatures below freezing). It is amazing how only 2 sunny weeks can transform lithops and give other plants a boost. After all the losses this year, seeing lithops actually not affected by the dark environment encourages me to focus more on them in the future. Other mesembs seem to be very touchy and even without water they stretch and die if there is not enough light. Lithops however, just proceed with their regeneration, no problem. They do fine as long as they're not being watered.

The old leaves are getting very soft first.

Then they get lines and wrinkles at the edges.

Then become thin and transparent.

Until they slip around the edges of the new leaves and disappear.

These look like the old leaves are deflating.

I was particularly relieved to see the below plant regenerate. It skipped a year meaning it has not regenerated last year at all. This year it just grows normally.

Bonus pic: Nothing says spring is coming like Sinningia leucotricha waking up :)

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 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.