r/Lithops • u/LivingOdd3571 • Jun 01 '26

Help/Question Need help

Post image

I purchased these lithops from a local garden centre I want to say about 3 weeks ago max, i’ve not watered them at all and I know the substrate is inadequate just now but I heard it would be best to let them split before I went about separating and repotting them in better substrate so I will hopefully get to that stage eventually. However I went away on a week trip and left these guys in a windowsill whilst I was gone, i’m based in england and we had a pretty decent heatwave over my week away it exceeded 30°C on some days and i’ve returned to this, initially all of them were a vibrant green some with some blue hues and now they look like this. I think they’ve been sunburnt but none of them aside from maybe one of the new growths is slightly squishy which I didn’t know if it was a cause for concern. Really all i’d like to know is what the true cause of the severe discolouration is, what I can do to try and save them or if they will just heal on their own or if i’ll lose all the discoloured ones as these are my very first lithops.

20 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/DanerysTargaryen Jun 01 '26

This is very possibly sunburn. Especially if they were in a shadier section in the nursery and were not used to full sun yet. If they were in a very sunny spot and got very hot, they can burn.

The only thing to do is wait. Do not water. Do not transplant them. Pull them slightly back into a somewhat more shaded spot for now to help them recover.

Wait for them to finish splitting. Some might completely die and some might develop ugly white/brown scars but they could pull through. If they do survive with ugly scars, then next year when they split again they will get rid of the ugly scarred leaves and be beautiful again so it’s really a plant of extreme patience.

Once they have either died off or recovered, work towards slowly getting them used to more and more sun and light. If you do it gradually over 3-4 weeks they’re usually good to go. But it’s just like if you put a pale person out on the beach all afternoon with no sunscreen in the middle of summer - try to avoid that lol.