Conophytum fulleri waking up (8 pics)

Today I had the pleasure of witnessing this wonderful conophytum flower! ♥

How did it come to this? I've been trying to wake the conophytums. Some of them are already far along like the one from the previous post, others are still not changing visibly. I keep documenting it though :)

Here is the Conophytum fulleri changing or rather changing while still hiding.
I started watering on August 1st when it looked like this.

On Aug 13 I started seeing some green coming through.

On Aug 16 both plants already started to get chapped. Such a fresh green beneath!

And then, only one day later.... the flower started growing.

From there it escalated quickly. Aug 18

Aug 19

Aug 22. Beautiful ♥

Conophytum uviforme ssp. uviforme waking up (3 pics)

I went by the book and started watering my conophytums around August 1st but not all of them have woken up yet (or at least not very visibly). Interestingly while the conos I bought this year are quite slow the ones I've had for more than a year were ready for water and immediately started growing.

Here is one of them.

I'm trying to document the waking up process so there will be more pics soon.

26 July

5 August

16 August

Avonia flowers (the story)

I didn't expect it to be so tricky to catch these flowers. Now I know more and can be prepared for the next time. :) The first time I posted a picture of Avonia's flower buds 4.7 and it took them whole three weeks to arrive at this point. It would have been quicker, I guess, if the weather had played along but it was dark, cold, and rainy up untill two days ago. That's when the plant obviously decided to take advantage of the good weather window. Yesterday morning I've discovered that something has changed - there was a little white blob between the petals, and it grew bigger every hour (click the pic for larger version) until around 17:00 the flowers finally opened! Three or four hours later they have closed to never open again. It is a short-lived beauty. :)

not wanting to grow up

This is one of the first plants, a lesliei of course, I've bought as adults and it had some growth issues from the start.
First it kept the short fissure for years. Then, last year, I've discovered it's getting two heads and thought "Finally something's happening." But as they came out they looked small and miserable, snuggling up to each other. Both heads had a half-fissure so that it looked like they're "sharing" it, clinging to their juvenile form. It wasn't until this year that it got over this stage.

Maybe it will even be ready for flowers in a couple of years. ;)

slow but steady

I'm going back home on Saturday. So for now, since I don't have any new pictures, here comes a set showing the changes in a lesliei this winter.

You don't always notice these changes, but going through so many pictures you sometimes can't help thinking "Wait, this one has actually grown!"

The photos are from November, January, February and March.

aucampiae pancakes

Here is another "pancake". Like the plants from the previous post this aucampiae had it really sunny this summer. From the looks of it you might think it is soft but it is firm and hard as a stone! This plant has grown very well this year getting larger but not higher: the container is 7x7cm.

hookeri pancakes

A month ago, when I came back from Japan, I was posting about some lithops that have grown too much becoming 'cucumber'-shaped, but there were also 'pancakes': plants growing flat and near to the ground showing the shape I value the most. This case is a bit extreme - the hookeri was trying to hide from the sun in the pumice. Now that the heat is long gone it is round and fat but still shaped perfectly.

three stages of a flower

The recent 'Green Horn' flowers have turned out to be so fluffy! :)

another compilation

I got an impression that overprotective new lithops fans tend to panic over things they can easily figure out just watching their plants. :) Some happen to seriously freak out seeing a "dehydrated" lithops. It's important to know that in most cases wrinkles are not a bad thing! And it's surely much better than the opposite - cucumber shape, bursting open, 3 leaf changes a year. In my opinion, wrinkles also bring out colors nicely.

If an adult plant is in an advanced "wrinkle" stage it will bounce back and get its normal shape within 3 or 4 days after watering. Usually you can see some progress even after a few hours!

On the picture is another helmutii I bought under description "new locality" (新産地). Don't know about that but it does have quite curious yellow-orange window edges I find very appealing. Normally I wouldn't be so radical about re-hydrating it but I needed it to be tiptop for the trip. ;) The pic shows its progress within ca. 3 days. (click to enlarge)

Five months in a lithops life

Being away from the action I'm slowly running out of (relatively new) pictures to show so here are 5 from the year 2008 I've shot out of curiosity.

People who see lithops for the first time often seem to think these plants take a long time to grow. I suppose, lithops fans know it to be wrong. :)

I've been taking pictures of a hookeri mix pot throughout 5 months to see how they change, and it's quite amazing how they've managed to outgrow this large pot by far in such a short period of time! (I guess this would look more impressive if I made a .gif pic out of it. I'll do that as soon as I've more time.)

Also, it's funny that these pictures were taken in summer and early fall - the period that is considered the resting period for lithops. Initially I intended to keep taking pictures of this pot for a whole year but I obviously miscalculated (or underrated the plants) so that they were squeezing each other out of the pot quite badly and had to be repotted soon after taking the October pic. The plants have turned out well, I'll keep featuring them separately in the future. This one and this one are from this mix.

PS: I'm going to Tokyo soon. Since I'm not visiting the nurseries, I'll at least try to check out the succulent shops. I'll let you know if I find anything :)