Each year, a new pair of leaves emerge on a Lithops. This year, there are TWO pairs!! I am thrilled. Well, I am just thrilled any time something isn't dying under my watch. This particular Lithops I think is a karasmontanas var., but I can't be totally sure because I purchased it unidentified. This little guy, guys now, are planted in carnelian and agates that I have been collecting from my local beach. Since Lithops are generally colored to match the surrounding rocks in their natural habitat, I wanted to try to make a gesture towards authenticity. Just for this once anyway.
It isn't good news for all my Lithops, though. Karasmontanas' next door neighbor (above) is slowly dying. I bought it from a very commercial, cheap distributor who planted it in improper medium. Instead of being in a fast draining rock mix, it was in potting soil with a bit of sand. As such, I had been avoiding watering them. Now it is starting to shrivel, which means it needs water. So I tried to remove as much of the old soil as possible and replant them in my own substrate (combination of pumice pebbles and shell) before watering. I am afraid that there is still too much of the old soil left on the roots and so it is holding onto the water and rotting the roots. We'll see if they can bounce back.
Plants can just be so mysterious sometimes. I have spent months watering and watching my Pachypodium rosulatum, waiting for something to happen. I had one new leaf last month. That's it. But I was looking at it today and noticed all these new little branches starting to form. No idea how that is going to work out as the growing season is almost over. In another month or so, there will be no more watering until spring. This guy is perched in a mound of fossilized coral. I wish I had more of it, but this is the last of my stock pile from when I lived on the East coast.
At the suggestion of my friend and planting guru, Emily Stuart (see footnotes), I have started keeping a plant journal. Since all my plants seem to have very specific growing needs and are all running on different calenders, I need to keep a record of their life cycles. With a lot of these specimen succulents, they don't live by the seasons where you live, but by the seasons and climatic cycles from where their species originated. And then some of them seem to hate on their growers. Nothing like being rejected by a house plant.
Read more from the famous Miz. Stuart:
http://natureassassin.blogspot.com/
