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. :)
