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Cheiridopsis denticulata

April 11, 2014, 12:23 am
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I bought these Cheiridopsis denticulata (labeled candidissima) in June 2013 and was really worried how they will like my conditions. After all, they are my first Cheiridopsis and winter-growing mesembs are generally a bit tricky on a windowsill. Now I've had them for almost a year and they seem to have completed their yearly life cycle successfully. What a relief! Over the last months, starting as early as November, they've grown new leaves that are simply magnificent. The old ones are wrinkled but I'm allowing them to stay because accordning to my inside sources (Thank you Bob! ;) ) it is okay for them to have several pairs of leaves at a time. In fact one of the plants is pushing another pair (or dare I hope a flower?). 
All in all I'm very pleased they are happy with what I can give them in terms of sunlight and substrate and watering schedule. I will reduce waterings during the summer and reprise what I've been doing for the past year.

Not everything is this shiny with Cheiridopsis. Ch. peculiaris didn't make it as well as one of the 5 Ch. denticulata I initially had. Never started any new growth and just withered with time. Acclimation is hard.
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Adromischus leaf cutting

April 12, 2014, 11:40 am
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I've been doing some transplanting and rearranging today and was surprised this Adromischus I've been leaf-propagating has grown really nice fat roots. It is much slower with actual leaves :)

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Titanopsis seedlings today (4 pics)

April 13, 2014, 12:08 am
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My Titanopsis calcarea seedlings are almost one year old (sown1st of May2013) and look at this beauty! Perfect shape, perfect color, perfect warts - love it! ♡ 


But not every seedling had a chance to grow just as perfectly as the one above. Two of them had some difficulties during the winter and messed up the growing point, the spot where the new growth starts in the middle of the rosette. All the plants give up on some growing-points now and then and just use another (like a side branch) to continue. It is just a bit tricky if it only has one. I'm not sure what exactly goes wrong in these cases. The seedling below had a pair of really strange crippled leaves that didn't want to grow and then grew into weird shapes (trauma at a very early stage like an insect bite?). Luckily the seedling is healthy and strong and didn't want to wait until that growing point sorts itself out. It just grew a side branch and the new grows is healthy and well-shaped. By now I already can see new healthy leaves coming out of the messed up rosette as well.


The seedling below has just completely dried off the main growing point and focused on the side branch. A less strong plant would just give up all together as we probably all have sadly experienced. With these seedlings I'm pretty confident that they will be fine.


Just like their parent :)

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A. schooneesii growing (3 pics)

April 15, 2014, 9:54 pm
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Here is another perfect seedling, ten months old. The others are doing well, too. Unlike the one tiny seedling you can see in the left corner of the photo below (same age btw) the others are only slightly smaller than this kid. Hope the root is getting fatter as well. Love the darker color! ☆




Can you spot the side branch? ;)



My adult plant is growing new leaves, too. It is slightly elevated to give the leaf-ball more room to spread. I guess the leaves would have spread more horizontally if the caudex was buried from the start but I've received it already as a ball last year and I kinda like it :D


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Side-branch compilation (6 pics)

April 17, 2014, 11:22 pm
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I'm always excited when my plants develop side shoots, doesn't matter if this is a new lithops head or a new branch on other mesembs. While with some plants it happens a lot and is almost overwhelming with my limited space (Rhinephyllum and Stomatium are going crazy) in the normal case, for me, is it is quite rare. Therefore I'm always on the look-out for new side shoots and when I find one it absolutely makes my day, if not week :D
I've shown you this Aloinopsis malherbei over on twitter before. Here it is again, 10 months old and growing a "secondary" set of leaves.

Here is a Prepodesma. Lately I've reduced watering to bring out the tan (photos soon).


Rabiea expanding.


Not a mesemb but there's a whole line of new growth along its side. I'm waiting for the flowers to develop :)


Younger Titanopsis primosii is also getting more bushy.


My older plant is already a "tree" and the color is amazing!

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This just in: Argyroderma crateriforme (3 pics)

April 19, 2014, 1:20 pm
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I've received this Argyroderma crateriforme from ebay today. It looks like a really old one, with all those layers of dry old leaves. In my view it is just beautiful. :)
It has arrived bare root but just unpotted not cleaned. And it is pretty understandable because the roots and the substrate have merged into a solid mass. Maybe I made a mistake and I should have just left it like it is but I wanted to free the roots and let them breathe. Of course to do so I had to brutally wash it, while pulling out imbedded stones and soil and tear out roots themselves (at least they were dry and inactive which should have reduced the harm). At the end I could bare the roots but felt really bad I had to disturb the plant like this. Acclimation is hard even without such drastic procedures. 
Well, after all the washing I first let the plant dry - and it took a while because of all those layers of dry leaves. Then I was thinking of putting it in dry pumice and just hope for the best but I felt so uncomfortable doing that that I decided to construct a paper towel skirt instead. I thought this way I can stimulate and reactivate the roots in a controlled environment (it worked before) and make the towel/root wet without letting the moisture touch the countless layers of dry leaves that could start rotting very quickly and easily. The plan is to wait until new tiny white roots appear and then pot it into pumice substrate. At the moment I'm still afraid I made a big mistake but we'll see how it goes...  

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Plant friendship

April 20, 2014, 11:24 pm
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This could be a plot for a sitcom. Three different plants were made to share one pot and the hardships of their life together has made them into the best of friends. :)
The plants in this case are Gibbaeum geminum, Neohenricia sibbettii and Adromischus marianae v. herrei 'green form'. I potted them together last September because I didn't have the room (planting every small plant into its own container is a luxury on the windowsill) and I did so without knowing they would be compatible. I think they like growing together very much. 


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Little A. schooneesii monster

April 25, 2014, 12:45 pm
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This little guy is doing some serious out-of-the-box thinking :D

"Wait... I didn't know I could do that. Let's try it again.. Ha! Nice!"

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Growth spurt for Lithops seedlings (2 pics)

May 3, 2014, 3:05 am
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I know I've posted the second pic recently but you can only really appreciate the first one in comparison :)
The L. aucampiae seedlings have increased in size a lot in only one month between 7.04 and 3.05. This is not what I had in mind as I transplanted them to give them more room to spread. But I'm glad they liked their new 8,5cm deep container!

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Anacampseros namaquensis flower (2 pics)

May 3, 2014, 10:36 am
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It took my Anacampseros namaquensis 3 to 4 weeks to fully develop flower stalks and now the flowers open one by one. I missed the first flower but here is the second one. Very cute but short-lived - it stayed open only for 2 hours after opening around 16:30 today. To not miss this kind of Anacampseros or Avonia flowers here's the rule: If you see something red (or white) at the tip of the bud around midday or even earlier the flower will open in the evening. This way you can make arrangements like cancelling all plans you had with your friends that day :D

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Monilaria pisiformis seedlings

May 4, 2014, 1:47 am
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These Monilaria pisiformis seedlings are now one month old (actually younger, the seeds were sown on the 5th of April) but they already are growing their first true leaves, the bunny-ears kind, somehow breaking through the sides but okay, whatever :)
I'm very excited to grow them because of the two different kinds of leaf sets situation. I'm not sure how they will grow in their first year but I'm ready for all the surprises they'll throw at me!

The fat seedlings in the back are Cheiridopsis pillansii, sown 20th of April, by the way.

(Seeds from Mesa Garden)
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Transplanting Lithops in pumice substrate (video)

May 4, 2014, 11:32 am
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I was transplanting some Lithops today and thought I'd better catch it on video because I always receive questions about how to dig holes in pumice. The answer is you don't. You fill the container with dry pumice stones up to the brim, make sure the tip of the root is in and then wiggle a stick to make the stone collapse and pull the plant down by the root while slightly pushing from above. You don't have to be afraid to damage the roots. If you followed the rule to transplant dry-to-dry it'll all be fine. The pot in this video is 5x5cm small but you can get up to 16 young seedlings in it using this method. No need to dig holes or use the common cacti transplanting method by laying the plants on the side. Anyway, I find it quite easy and fast :)
(Sorry the video is not good..)



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Aloinopsis spatulata

May 6, 2014, 10:06 pm
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I got this plant in December as a "blind buy" and it was half dead when it arrived. Unfortunately all the specialized nurseries out there, online as well as printed catalogue based, don't let buyers see the plants they buy. You have to just hope they'll pick a healthy and strong plant for you. It's rarely the case. Why should they? For this reason I prefer ebay when I buy plants - what you see is what you get. Anyway, I didn't expect the plant below to survive, it was small, had a lot of dry leaves and the growing points were damaged. From the overall shape I could barely tell it was an A. spatulata at all. Basically I just put it in a pot with some other plants and forgot about it. It wasn't until recently that it flipped back into consciousness and suddenly started growing new leaves and branches. I'll have to do something about the long leaves to bring it into a proper, spatulata-appropriate shape but I'm hopeful. With a sunnier spot on the windowsill and a tougher watering schedule it will eventually be a happy  and handsome plant. It has already earned itself an own container :)


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Neohenricia sibbetii 2014

May 19, 2014, 12:50 pm
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One of the cuttings of my Neohenricia sibbetii has already started the flowering season. I had to stay late just to take the pictures - the flowers opened fully around 23:00!

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Rhinephyllum muirii seedlings

May 25, 2014, 9:42 pm
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I'm very surprised and excited to see what quick growers the Rhinephyllum muirii seedlings have turned out to be (there are 2 plants on the photo). They were very slow and weak during their first months but then had a growth spurt. And yes, they are that green ;)




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Aloinopsis peersii (3 pics)

May 27, 2014, 12:21 am
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I got these two Aloinopsis peersii back in November 2013 and was really worried they won't get acclimated. You see, they are quite big and fat and meaty and under my conditions plants grow compactly. Each time I purchase a "fat" plant it has huge problems downsizing. Especially Lithops simply don't make it through regeneration in these cases. On the photo below you still can see the large fat leaves I got it with but all the new ones, grown at my place, are much smaller and more fitting and appropriate. They grow in a 7x7x10cm container and are downsizing gradually and in a healthy manner. There are many side branches, too :)


This plant's special feature is the fluffiness of the leaves. Yes, they are as soft as they look ;)


The picture below was taken last November.  Check out those carrot roots! I think with these guys watering from the bottom would make sense but I water them from above and it seems to be fine.

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Anacampseros seed capsules (3 pics)

May 31, 2014, 5:00 am
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I honestly don't know much about Anacampseros except for my own observations but I remember reading somewhere that they are or can be self-fertile. Since my Anacampseros filamentosa ssp. namaquensis is currently flowering (I missed almost all of the flowers) I was wondering whether any seeds will develop. Some of the faded flowers drop their heads and fall off very soon.


Others stay upright and push the remaining sepals up like a hat with only some hair-like see-through fibers left. If you look closely you can see something is inside that looks like the rests of dried anthers. But in fact those are seeds!


The unusual and pretty unstable seed capsule measures only 6mm but there are over 60 seeds. The seeds are placed loosely inside and fall out at the slightest touch.

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Three-leaf-schooneesii update

May 31, 2014, 9:58 am
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Just a little update on the Aloinopsis schooneesii seedling, now one year old, that grows in three leaf sets. This is the 4th set so far ;)
(Click to enlarge)

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Argyroderma crateriforme (update)

June 5, 2014, 9:29 pm
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A little update on the Argyroderma with the "brutally washed" roots. I've planted it into pumice as soon as I could see the first hint of new white water absorbing roots. Fortunately it has been doing well and nicely reacting to water ever since. Now it stays wrinkle-less even in full sun. But we have to remember that like with most of the mesembs bought as adults it must stay alive and well for at least a year to be able to say it's out of the woods. 


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Titanopsis primosii seedlings

June 7, 2014, 1:33 am
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These Titanopsis primosii seedlings are one year old now and one of them is starting to develop side shoots. I'll have to repot them soon. In fact, all of the last year's mesemb seedlings are in need of transplantation... 

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