Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Overdue Repotting of Lithops

Lithops bromfieldii v. mennellii

Six year old lithops should not be in their original seeding pot!  Therefore I am going to remove these and give them their own pots.  I believe several already have two leaf pairs, but that will be evident when they are unpotted. 

If someone is looking for relatively easy lithops to grow, the bromfieldii group is for you.  They grow fast and seldom cause trouble.  These were under fluorescent lights for two years and have been out in the sun for the past four years.  The leaf markings are vivid and I think this variety is my favorite within the bromfieldii group. 

However, I have several L. bromfieldii v. bromfieldii plants that have a lot of dark maroon in the leaves and are very attractive.  It's always hard to pick favorite lithops.  

7 comments:

  1. Beautifully grown specimens!! I think I can see from here that all of them apart from the small guys in the corner are two-headed. :) Really beautiful plants.
    I've only discovered my affection for bromfieldii after growing them from seed. Apart from color spectrum I find their flat-top-shape very attractive.

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    1. Thank You Rika. You were right, there were five two-headed plants and three smaller singles. I'll keep one of the two-headed plants and the three small plants, and try to sell the others at the upcoming show and sale of our C&S society in August. Visitors to the show always are interested in lithops and eagerly buy plants, but I always feel a bit sorry for the plants, as most buyers have no idea concerning their care. I do give them a page of instructions on lithops care, but learning to grow lithops from a single page of instructions is not likely - no matter who wrote it. I am going to revise my lithops instructions somewhat, because I have learned quite a bit from an expert in lithops windowsill culture in Germany. ;-)

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    2. Oh no! Can't you keep them? Or at least sell them online to people with some knowledge about them? I'd sure feel sorry for them, too. I have many seedlings and already know I won't be able to keep them all, but I already feel bad to have to give them away. Still, the plants might find a good home. A lot of plants have died on me over the years but I still have my very first lithops. Maybe your plants will be those first lithops for someone!
      You give me way too much credit ;) The secret to growing lithops is love :) Just as with everything.

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  2. Beautiful! L. bromfieldii are among my favorites! They are much easier than some other species.

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    1. Hi Marla. Yep, L. bromfieldii is an underappreciated species. How many lithops (approximately) do you have? I have about 90 and I always thought that was a small number, but I really have no idea how many plants most bloggers about lithops have. I look forward to seeing lots of photos of your plants when you get that new camera. Hope it's soon!

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  3. I've got about 5 dozen right now, maybe a dozen different species. Not a huge collection, but I'm learning a lot. My Tillandsia collection keeps expanding exponentially, however!

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  4. These are among my favorites. The markings are so beautiful!

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