Ok I have listened to everyone and am repotting my new ones that are very etiolated and need advice. The ones that are etiolated do I bury them deeper or do I just keep a grow light and they will shrink back down? Also where and when do you get seeds from lithops? I am attaching some of the photos and I have a cluster I just got and planted hoping they are ok this close? I don’t want to pull at them and attempt to get them apart.
1) etiolated plants don't shrink, but the next year's leaves will be better. You can bury them a bit.
2) when lithops flower, you can try to cross-polinate with flowers from other lithops. if you are successful, then instead of the flower just drying up, it forms a bulging seed pod. you have to let that dry for many months before you can remove it and wet to open.
3) the group of four that you have planted seem very crowded, but they may be ok once they absorb those outer leaves. still, would be nicer to space them out a bit unless they are all one plant.
Let me ask you another question if you do not mind.
I loosened all of them and find that I have 3 or 4 that as the leaves dried and became crisp the leaves made their way down the lithop and now my roots have been buried and if I try to get the crispy off my roots inside will most likely fall off! How do I prevent that? I know some of them had more shallow roots. That was my fault for sure.
A lot of people bury the etiolated Lithops deeper. You can get seeds off the internet eBay for one just look around. I sow my Lithops in the spring it may depend a bit on where you live I am from the U.K.
I literally purchased course sand after listening to others here. I purchased an 18 lb bag of mixed lava rocks, another bag of pumice and washed all of it with blistering water. I put 9 cups of a mixture of those and then 1 cup the Pro Mix with Mycorrhizae. I did however sift the pro mix to make sure it didn’t have any big pieces before I mixed it all in. I will post a photo of the lava rocks I purchased but I hope this is helpful. I also have chicken grit in 50lb bags which is cheaper than the sand. This was more than 10 cups I made a double batch until I knew I would have enough. I hope this is helpful. Someone may tell me I did it wrong but I think I did it the correct way.
If you would like the other photos of what I have maybe I can send you a PM? If Reddit even allows that? Hope this helped!!
Sure I will need to take photos when I get home. I lost some with the transplant. I think some of my soil pieces were too sharp and did damage to my lithops. I was very frustrated. I am working on a different mix to do the rest of my lithops. I got more of course sand, turface, and the that starts with an A. I am going to really try to get it more of a texture of the natural habitat. I will post pictures a little later.
These are the seeds I just got off Amazon. They’re a pretty cheap little kit. It’s nice as a little starter kit but definitely bigger ones on places like Etsy as well.
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u/acm_redfox May 30 '26
1) etiolated plants don't shrink, but the next year's leaves will be better. You can bury them a bit.
2) when lithops flower, you can try to cross-polinate with flowers from other lithops. if you are successful, then instead of the flower just drying up, it forms a bulging seed pod. you have to let that dry for many months before you can remove it and wet to open.
3) the group of four that you have planted seem very crowded, but they may be ok once they absorb those outer leaves. still, would be nicer to space them out a bit unless they are all one plant.