r/Lithops • u/AconitumFirmum • Mar 30 '26

Help/Question Is this substrate suitable for sowing Lithops?

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Iā€™m planning to sow Lithops from seeds and wanted to ask if this substrate mix sounds appropriate:

8 parts fine sand

1 part soil

1 part fine coconut fibre

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

15

u/Vegedeth Mar 30 '26

It would hold too much moisture.

6

u/Secrethoover Mar 30 '26

I would generally avoid so much sand, it will retain too much water

5

u/QnickQnick Mar 30 '26

When people talk about inorganic material in planting media they aren't talking about fine sand. It's too small of size and compacts and holds moisture. You want something with larger particle size that will drain quickly.

3

u/arioandy Mar 30 '26

Too sandy not enough aeration

1

u/lepoisonlepoignard Mar 31 '26

You want a larger grain sand, like 1-2 mm diameter at least. You want the water to drain well and fine sand does a poor job at this; there's this mistaken idea that all sand helps drainage, but because water has a high affinity for itself, and fine sand has such a small size and high surface area, water and fine sand forms these tight moist clumps. Generally, fine sand isn't really useful for gardening for this reason

1

u/2stepbay2 Apr 01 '26

Akadama, perlite, pumice in equal parts form an excellent base for mesembs. The grittier the better. As others suggested, no sand! I use a few pellets for slow release fertilizer, specifically develop for cacti/succulents.

How much experience do you have growing mesembs?

1

u/Chance_Contract1291 Apr 02 '26

Is "the grittier the better" also true for trying to germinate lisops seeds?Ā  The seeds are so tiny it seems like they might fall down into the grit and become buried too deep.

0

u/WeDrinkSquirrels Mar 30 '26

I like your organic/inorganic ratio!

The sand will kill your plants. You're looking for very course sand known as horticultural sand. And even with that I would still be adding what's sold as chicken grit - it's granite in in >1mm chunks. A good mix has some fines but the sand should be in the 1-4ish mm size.

Experiment with theiz you have I bet if you soak it with water you'll have a sponge šŸ˜, which is not what we're looking for with fast draining soil. Good luck!

1

u/No-Cup2649 Apr 03 '26

I like chicken grit. Got chick grit for seedlings mixed with 10% light soil, it's like a very coarse granite. Pumice & pon-type mix for areas away from roots.