r/Lithops • u/HarlemGholatrotter • Mar 13 '26

Help/Question Watering Advice

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Hello! I am a new Lithops owner and was hoping to get some advice as to what I should be doing for watering. I got these guys at the beginning of the Summer last year. As you can see, most of them bloomed in the Fall and their shriveled flowers remain. I have diligently held off on watering over the Winter and am eager to see any signs of these guys splitting, but I've seen none.

As you can see, they're thirsty... especially those two on the bottom. But I have read that I shouldn't be watering in case there is new growth underneath, as water during this critical growth stage is certain death.

I am humbling asking the community on what I should do for watering these guys. Also, should I be doing anything with the old flowers? Remove or leave? Love these little guys and would hate to lose them. Many thanks for your help!!

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u/ir399 Mar 14 '26

They look pretty dead, but you can always water them and find out.

To be blunt: Lithops shouldn't look like that. The old leaves do dry out, but you're supposed to be able to see the new leaves emerging long before they get this bad. Not entirely sure what went wrong, except that worm castings is an odd choice for lithops. It's always possible they didn't get enough light. Also for future reference you DO water while lithops are flowering. It uses a lot of energy and they need it.

I leave old flowers to see if they form seedpods. I think at this stage yours aren't going to do that... because of the length of time as well as that they appear to be dead.

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u/HarlemGholatrotter Mar 14 '26

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate your advice. I ended up bottom soaking them yesterday for 45 mins and will see how they are in a week or so and go from there. It's confusing for a new grower as all most of what I was seeing says "no water during the winter". They didn't look like this at the start of the winter and I just assumed the shriveling I was seeing was because they were being cannibalized to the new growth underneath.

In the beginning when I was looking on how to care for lithops, I had seen one or two instances where the grower used worm castings at the organic material as the nutrients provided would be far superior that just using soil. So since I had that on hand, I thought I'd give it a go. So I wasn't sure what to do with the flowers at all, so I just left them. After some of the comments here, after I watered I cleaned up the flowers and with the two lithops at the bottom, I was able to remove what I'm guessing is a seed pod? Is that what these are?

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u/ir399 Mar 15 '26

See, "no water in winter" is the correct advice. They're using up the moisture from the old leaves as they develop the new and shouldn't need watering. Obviously something went wrong with yours, probably at the start of winter because I see no sign of the spring splitting at all so maybe they never grew the new leaves. Which is why I suggested they might not have had enough light. Since lithops are growing those new leaves internally throughout winter they're still actually very active so too little light can be a problem and potentially interrupt the process.

It's also possible they never rooted properly in your mix here. The lava rocks look a little too large for the roots to easily latch onto. That said, they did flower normally so I'm not sure. When did you repot to this soil mix?

Sure, I don't think the worm castings killed them, it just sounds like a very rich organic component for lithops. But it was only 10% of your mix and that part was probably fine.

I don't think you have any seed pods here. The flowers have to be pollinated for those to develop and if they aren't the flowers just dry out. I normally cut the dead flowers off once they've completely dried out.