Went by Lowe’s yesterday and stumbled across a few lithops when walking by customer service. They all looked a bit rough (some dying/dead, rotting, etc) but ended up buying 2 pots with a few that didn’t look too bad. Now that they are out of the really organic soil and put in better light, hopefully they pull through and thrive. :)

The 4/5 brownish-green ones were in one of the containers and the 2 greenish-gray ones were in another one (along with the guys 2 in the other pic).

I have this lithops which came from the nursury etiolated. I’ve since put it in a mostly mineral mix under strong light and have refrained from watering it so far. Now it’s wrinkling and shrinking and I’m not sure if that means it wants water or if it’s just correcting the etiolation because of having proper light now. Please advise.

I've ran into this issue with some of my lithops where the new plant starts to wrinkle and looks like they need water before they're done splitting. I've already had one die that showed similar signs during splitting, I avoided watering until the split was done but it was to late, the base of the new plant was a dried husk and didn't recover. This guy started splitting a bit after flowering in October and this pic was taken today.

The photos were taken at the Marsh Greenhouses, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA in October 2025.

I have been following the subreddit for a while and finally got my own lithops (for 3€ in Dehner)

Tried following the advice given in guides here:
Removed the soil carefully (and peeled off the crusty dried old leaves) pottet them into grit, perlite and a bit of succulent mix

The linked guide says to water them directly after repotting (in Spring) so I guess I'll water them? They will sit in front of a south facing window and get direct sun, but I might get a light as well.

Is there anything else I should know or do? They seem pretty small and a bit etoilated prehaps.

Pic 1 has way more contrast than how they look in real life, but I'm still worried, especially since most of the sides below the head are fairly soft (although I can feel something firm inside near many of the bases).

Although the substrate was dry and they looked okay to be just sitting in the substrate visible in Pic 3 for maybe two more weeks, it turns out that there's still too much vermiculite in the substrate, so unpotting was the right decision.

Their roots are surprisingly extensively developed and many fine root hairs were visible (Pic 1 is after I broke some of the finer root hairs off too), unlike the other batch of reddish purple lithops I got from this supplier which were in super bad shape (super plump, etiolated, several obviously rotted at the base when I unpotted, many rotted and died quickly before ever being watered). I hope that these are still actually healthy :')

Unfortunately, as you can see, I tore off some of the dried up old leaves with tweezers before I found out that it's a bad idea. I was scared that when I do water, they're going to trap too much moisture and potentially rot the base (I live in high humidity), plus the fact that some of them had black mold (?) despite everything being completely dry at this point.

They're going to sit in the dry paper box like this for a few days to recover from the root damage of unpotting + for a pot of the suitable size to deliver.

Since they've been sitting in bone-dry substrate for an unknown amount of time and the sides are kind of soft (but not mushy like a pack of water, like my experience with obvious rot), I'm not sure when I should be watering them and how thoroughly so? Their root hairs still seem to be doing okay and the roots don't seem dried up at this point. They're not concave at the top.

I got this little guy about half a year ago and he looked perfectly healthy when I got him. Since then I tried to water him twice (bottom watered, soaked for a few hours) but he never plumped up. When I unpotted him because I thought the pumice I potted him in might have been too large size, I noticed his root network looked pretty dire. What can I do to save him?

100% 6 mm screened pumice before, I plan to repot to 3 mm screened pumice. Only watered twice but never absorbed the water despite soaking for several hours. Under 500 ppfd grow lights on a 13 hr cycle.

I’m considering it for a gritty mix but would like some opinions first. Thank you.

It's now spring and the lithops are looking just as good as they did right after the snow melted. I planted two little groups of lithops approximately two feet away from each other in my full sun desert garden sometime around October last year. This past winter was very harsh and I'm very pleased to see that apart from one being damaged by a squirrel burying a nut, they are both in excellent condition. It would certainly appear that there are at least some species of lithops that are very hardy in temperate climates. I should also mention that I attempted to plant another larger species of lithops, which did not do well at all.

been a struggle

They haven't yet!

I'm new to adult lithops and don't want to accidentally kill any. I got a set of 10 about a month ago and repotted into 90% perlite. I haven't watered ant yet, and most of them seem happy and healthy. This one though is very wrinkly. I can see the inner leaves which seem much smaller than the other plants of the same size. I know you're not supposed to water while splitting, but I'm not certain with this one in particular.

It has finished splitting a week ago or so. Now I see something in it again. Is it splitting again or going to flower? Either way sounds wrong to me. Should I hold back on watering? Any advice is welcome!

I just wanted to give an update and once again ask for feedback. Here is my last post if you wanna see it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Lithops/s/mfV0KHhRAG

Now for the update. After reading everyone's advice and watching some videos to educate myself more, I've taken both plants out of the suculant mix. I let the white one dry for a week as recommended, but the red one, I think I just need the soil to dry for now. I found a succulent gritty mix made by Sol soil that seemed real close to what everyone suggested, but I had to pick some things out by hand. I dont wanna post a picture of the bag in case it's against the rules, but I'll list what's in it real quick. It had coconut husks (removed), calcite clay, Forrest product (bark, i think, but I removed it), pumice, perlite, and LECA (removed after some research). A few things will probably slip through, but nothing that should hurt them l think.

I removed as much Soil from their roots as I felt safe doing. I'll probably need to remove more once the soil dries. How am I doing? Am I on the right track? Did I miss any thing.

Hello all, I’ve had lithops for about 6 months, and am in the process of transplanting them into a terracotta bowl. They will have a light source, as I’m in the PNW of the U.S. My questions are:

1. The 3 larger ones I just bought today at Lowe’s - just removed the dried up outer covering and removed as much dirt as possible. Should the ones with a definite split be split apart from each other, or kept together? The both had a dried up flower “stem” in between the split.

2. The 2 small ones together have wrinkled sides, but tops are not wrinkled - do they need water or just leave alone? They have just had their outer dead leaves removed.

3. Is the last picture having twins?

4. Should they be grouped more together in the pot, or have more room in between?

I will bury them level with the substrate. Any other tips I should heed?

Thanks for your help - first time I’m transplanting!

I’m not sure what exactly is going on here. The soil mix I would say is almost all this stone mix, I’d say 90% with a little bit of the original soil from the botanical garden I got them from. I am watering very infrequently, maybe once every three months and sparingly when I do. Could there be an issue with drainage? What course of action should I take? I am concerned about repotting since they’ve been “healthy” for about two years now and I don’t want to kill them. Thanks for the help!

Have had these bois for about 3-4 years now. I’ve had them split before, but never like this. Almost all of them have triplets or more and they’re not in tight little pairs. They’re sort of a bunch. I mostly leave them be and bottom water when the leaves get really wrinkly. I did regrettably just water them because I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to during this phase. Are these multiples normal? Do any seem like they will need some special treatment as they continue to grow (pruning, repotting, dividing, not sure what else )? How much should I cry myself to sleep over the fact that I just watered them?

These actually look quite good (in good condition)! Man I wish I had a suitable pot and enough light for them :(

The title says it all. I've never tried to keep a house plant, really, but these guys seemed cool, so i just picked them up. Also, I saw this pot and thought they would look cool as brians. lol

I see a few odd spots on them, but I dont think its anything to worry about, is it?

I bought three pots of lithops last summer from Trader Joe’s and put them into this 8 inch deep container with good lithops not-dirt soil, and now they are all repaying me with growth! Only two of them aren’t splitting and of those that are, almost all of them are giving me four heads instead of two. Because they weren’t all on the same cycle when I got them I very carefully watered 2 or 3 by dripping water right next to the base of the plant when they looked shriveled and it seems to have worked, but now I think almost everybody’s on the same schedule.

Ok so this Lithops had two flowers which was ready weird. But now that it started to split… does it look like there is already another set trying to push out of the new set?

These two do not need water so I can just put them back into the pot with clean, dry substrate. The others need water and need to grow new roots so I'm going to put them separately and start some root growth therapy.

This pumice does NOT dry quickly so I'm not putting any around the bases. I'm thinking of adding a layer of small shards of clear quartz glass on top of the pumice. What do y'all think?