I had to post this photo. This guy is just the cutest little thing ♥
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Too cute
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A couple more flowers (2 pics)
At least 4 flowers couldn't fully develop this year. But no need to complain :) At least some could make it.
This L. localis for instance.
Also, how come I didn't know Conophytum obcordellum opens its flowers at night?
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Overwintering our Mesembs (5 pics)
This is the time of the year all you northern hemisphere lithops growers have already stopped watering your plants. Basically, the best time for it is as soon as the beginning of October. If you have you might already catch a glimpse of the new leaves on some plants, especially if you peek inside. The first species to show new leaves at my place is usually L. fulviceps. They started early and are quite far along already, too.
All in all, with lithops, the overwintering situation is quite clear (speed-read this part): you stop watering in October and start when the new leaves have emerged and the old leaves are completely gone. So, no water until April or even May, depending on the weather i.e. light conditions.
As you know I got more and more interested in mesembs other than lithops and have acquired or grown from seed quite a few over the last couple of years. How to properly care for them during the darker months is still a mystery for me though. There is not much literature on this matter so that careful observation of the own plants hopefully can help to understand what to do. The correct watering schedule correlates directly with the shape of the plants. If you grow them under natural light like I do it will be very dark for them during several months, and if you water them too much they will grow in length until they stick to the windowpane. At the same time they will get weaker, the color will get paler and those pretty features like teeth on a Faucaria will disappear. So much for what we don't want to happen but how do we achieve the opposite?
Many of the mesembs actually "sleep" in the summer heat and start to grow in the fall and flower in winter or early spring. Which means they should get at least some water. The right amount to support the growth but not too much so that they grow unshapely and weak. Theoretically.
The mesembs I'm trying to figure out at the moment are Cheiridopsis denticulata and Stomatium trifarium. I keep watering all the others but very very little.
I was living under the impression that Cheiridopsis are only allowed to have one pair of leaves at a time but Bob pointed out to me that it's not the rule. Over the summer the plants have dried up one pair of leaves and I can see the next one emegring out of the remaining pair. As I understand it is okay for them to be watered a little depending on their looks, right? It's a long-eared species so it's impossible for me to tell if the leaves are too long. They do incline to the windowpane a lot though.
The thing with the Stomatium plants is the fact that I already did something wrong with the watering last winter and would like to avoid it this time. Occasional watering back then has resulted in uncontrolled growth and quick drying off of the older leaves. The whole plant looked really bad in spring but luckely its rapid growth means it can be easily corrected. I've cut off all the heads and rooted them. Even though it was a success at the end I don't really want to devide it into cuttings after every winter (but I will if I must). Also, I have two 5,5 months old seedlings that don't look any different from the cuttings of their mother plant. I would like to give all of them very little water during the winter or even keep them dry but my attempts haven't been successfull yet. They keep "asking" for water while getting wrinkly and soft instead of going into a low growth / low water consumption state. Unfortunately the light situation doesn't balance out the waterings. Do I keep trying to make them lower their appetite? Meaning water them less and less until they are okay with "nothing"? I'd really like to at least keep the seedlings in shape.
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more surprise seed capsules (2 pics)
These pics were taken a month ago as it was still sunny. The good days. :) Now it rains all the time.
It appears that these two lithops have developed seed capsules after flowering. They didn't have a partner except for each other. White and yellow don't mix with lithops but any mesemb pollen can occasionally induce selfing. If there are indeed seeds inside I'll keep them to sow someday when I have the room for such experiments.
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Akadama & Kanuma substrate
I read about this substrate mix (also, @LeatherSolis uses it whose plants look amazing!) so I've decided to try it, too. Don't get me wrong, I love pumice and I'll keep using it, but I just need to satisfy my curiosity.
Both Akadama and Kanuma substrates are mostly used for bonsai in these parts of the world. Apparently in Japan it's beeing used a lot for mesembs, too. The qualities of both substrates seem to be similar to pumice. Akadama (brown) is slightly acidic, Kanuma (yellow) - more. I'm going to try it with a couple of adult plants as well as for sowing (more Akadama, less Kanuma, maybe with some vermiculite mixed in) and report on my observations.
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Faucaria and Adromischus today (2 pics)
Now to today's pics - all dark and gloomy and gray. That's what the plants have to put up with these days.
This Faucaria I got as a present almost 2 years ago definitely received wrong care last winter (even though I'm still not sure what the right care would be). Probably too much water while having it too dark (as usual): new leaves grew very slowly, badly shaped with almost no teeth; old leaves dried up quickly leaving ugly stems. In the spring I've cut off a couple of "heads" and rooted them hoping for a new start. The plant took it slow and didn't like the summer heat at all. But as it got cooler it suddenly started to grow new and very meaty leaves with nicely long teeth! Now I just need to figure out how to keep it this way. *headscratch
Beside it you can see two leaves of an Adromischus greenie I stuck into the soil to get new plants (gotta love this way of propagation). I've recently bought one - these plants look really interesting, how could I say no? - but two leaves fell off during re-potting, they are quite fragile. They already have roots but no new growth yet.
The "original" plant has to share its pot with a Gobbaeum and a Neohenricia cutting (I have those cutting growing everywhere I could find a free square centimeter XD).
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A. rubrolineata and flowers
I've been complaining a lot about this plant to you over on twitter. Now it's time to show it.
This is the one Aloinopsis rubrolineata that is always trying to flower but never makes it. It grows a flower bud to a certain stage, then dries it and grows another one right away which then also drops. At the moment it has grown one flower bud to a considerable size and is growing another out of the top. No idea if it will be able to open at least one of them this time but if it does there will be a huge celebration. :)
I guess, if only the sun came out for a couple of days it would be enough...
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Titanopsis almost ready to shine
Btw, one of my Titanopsis calcarea plants is growing a flower, too. Let's see how it goes. With my plants I never know if they'll change their mind at the last minute ;)
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Aloinopsis - finally!!
It's quite a large flower! :)
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Still a little shy though. I will update once it's fully open. Can't believe it's finally happening. Persistence is worth while in many cases, even with tiny mesembs :)
Still a little shy though. I will update once it's fully open. Can't believe it's finally happening. Persistence is worth while in many cases, even with tiny mesembs :)
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A. rubrolineata all dreamy
Another photo of the pretty flower. This time an artistic one of sorts :)
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Cheiridopsis peculiaris
This one sure looks... peculiar!
That's probably something everybody thinks when they first see it, including the person who named it.
Looking though the pictures online I still can't tell how exactly it grows. Is it like - first it grows those floppy leaves, than some fat round-ish ones with flowers inside and than floppy ones again? Does it have two monilaria-like sets of leaves?
It does get a nice lilac color in the strong sun I'm very much looking forward to.
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Aaand another one
I just got this one recently with a flower bud already so the credit for this lovely flower goes to the previous owner. :) In any case it deserves a portrait.
Also, the Titanopsis flower opened today. I'll take a pic tomorrow~
Also, the Titanopsis flower opened today. I'll take a pic tomorrow~
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lithops seedlings update (4 pics)
Just a quick update on how some of my lithops seedlings are doing these days. :)
As you can see seedlings from 2012 are much bigger now and should regenerate shortly. Interestingly they all have had only one regeneration so far, being on an adult leaf change schedule right from the start. Jk, they are simply slow. ;) Quite big though (aucampiae) and desperately needing larger pots (bromfieldii).
Seedlings from 2011 are also about to change their leaves. The pancakes are such gems. Can't wait to see their next leaves, they must be much more adult-like.
Seedlings 2009, gracilidelineata, are already far along. As always, I hope for flowers next season.
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A cute titanopsis flower (2 pics)
A little drop of sunlight on the windowsill :)
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Here a size comparison. I have more A. rubrolineata pictures. Would it be an overkill to post them? XD The flower is so big and pretty *__*
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Kanchūmimai :)
I hope all of you my dear readers have had wonderful winter holidays and a good start into the new year 2014! It's late but I wish you all the happiness and health for this year and good species-appropriate growing season to your plants ;)
The last one is actually too early in case of our mesembs. There's still a long way to go until there's any real quality growing. Not much happening at the moment. All the plants look more dead and destroyed than anything else... I don't even have anything to show you since there's nothing new between fall flowering and spring's new growth. Some of my lithops have almost regenerated but are still not being watered for lack of sunlight. So far I can see 13 new heads ("new" as in 1 divided into 2 or 2 divided into 3), three of which are my own seedlings. Quite encouraging. Other mesembs are sort of hanging in there. I'm watering them but very very little.
Still there is one development worth mentioning. My Frithia pulchra's health has been in decline since summer: no new growth, drying out patches of leaves etc. I've noticed too late that it was basically lying on the substrate and didn't have any root system left. The whole root rotted away and as I was cleaning it from dead tissue the plant broke in two parts. I wasn't comfortable putting it back into soil and hoping the roots will grow back. Moreover I wanted to be able to check up on the development whenever I like. The result was the following paper towel based set-up. The cuttings have spent a couple of months tightly wrapped into paper and fixed on a plastic lid. I watered them by watering the paper wrap.
Now, after the new roots have shown up I've potted them safely. Should be fine now. After all, spring is coming. :)
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Trichodiadema and Crassula flowers
Recently purchased Trichodiadema densum has opened a flower. Not white or yellow for a change :)
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All the Crassula I have went through a long acclimation process, with growth stop, rotting and such, but at the end they got used to their new situation and two of them even flowered. Here is the cute little Crassula mesembryanthemopsis. It's strange to see so typically crassula-like flowers on such a mesemb-looking plant :)
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Leaves of a Trichodiadema
It's been some time since the plant was watered and now the leaves have gotten nice and juicy. New ones are growing, too!
Check out the Trichodiadema densum up close :) Very unusual leaf surface.
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Rabiea seedlings
Sorry, I couldn't focus the camera properly, the seelings are tiny. But I also couldn't wait until they are bigger to show them to you because of so much cuteness! Adorable ♥
Sown in November 2013
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Steineckeana's new shiny faces (2 pics)
My steineckeana babies are three years old today. With this year's regeneration they start to look much more mature. In the photo below almost all of them already have changed their leaves. In fact many of my lithops already have. I'm not watering yet though, waiting for the spring and better light.
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Gracilidelineata seedlings first to regenerate (5 pics)
My 2009 L. gracilidelineata seedlings are first to fully show their new faces this year. They looks so fresh and spotless. Since it is still dark outside I am not watering them and luckily they seem to be in a stasis for now, also waiting for the spring.
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