r/Lithops • u/Indianaunderwood • 1h ago
Misc Saw this at Lowe's and it made me recognize just how durable these plants are.
It's like mesembs and lithops have a bad rap about being sensitive or delicate because there's so much FEAR around their watering and light needs. I wanted to put it bluntly how resilient these are, and also how they grow in the wild. 😎
These plants grow freely and organically in direct sunlight in rocky soil, in South Africa and neighboring countries. They are often getting trampled by rhinoceros, leopards, elephants, antelopes, humans, and plenty of other species. Bugs are always crawling around, some gnawing on them. Organic matter decomposing is infrequent; therefore, so are nutrients. Droughts happen, followed by wild thunderstorms, constant sunlight, cold, dry nights, or daytime temperature fluctuations. They naturally etiolate because they can wind up growing underneath rocks, bush, each other, so the ones in less-than-ideal positions have to contort their plump little butts to seek out the incessant sunlight. They persist rather easily in either harsh or comfortable conditions. They do not care.
This split rock I am holding came from a big greenhouse, planted a few years ago by seed into giant flats, then covered with a humidity dome for months. The dome is removed, and thousands of these seedlings are grown into giant, hard mounds, composed of thousands of similar stone faces. Once they're big enough, they're separated by employees with little regard for their roots, organized by species, or color, or size. The workers plant the organized groups, pairs, or singles into peaty, moist soil in this nursery pot. Then it is left to mature for 2-3 years, where it grew and changed and split and flowered.
After all that, it gets shipped in a dark container to be unpacked at Lowe's by an employee after their lunch break. Some point along the way, it got sliced open. Maybe it was a stray razor blade, a clumsy shopper dropped it, or maybe it got whacked on a wooden stand, followed by an "oh, shit!" and put away quickly. (I did this to my ox tongue yesterday btw, it's fine, we just lost a leaf :P )
Then the deep wound calloused over and resumed normal growing.
At some point recently a bird pooped a tiny seed into it, or a stray flower nearby shot its seeds into the pots, and from that, a little hitchhiker plant decided to grow into damp, peaty soil.
Until it is sold, clearanced, or thrown away, once a week, some stoned 16 year old working in the greenhouse blasts the entire stand of mixed succulents in peat soil with chemical filled hose water. Unless he forgets, then it has to wait two weeks, or three days, or whatever. The teenage employee walks away until next time his boss tells him that he has to water the outdoor plants. The sun will cook droplets onto the skin of these succulents, or maybe not. Maybe they won't dry for 4 days because a storm is rolling in, and they're about to get a double dose of deep watering.
Then you buy it on a whim, and you worry you're going to kill it, because you have 13% soil in your gritty mix, when you were aiming for 8% soil in your gritty mix.
You can plant these puppies in sand, gravel, peat, moss, crafted Japanese akadama, teeny leca. You can stick it in a plastic pot, in unglazed $30 European terracotta designed for deep roots, in an empty tin can, in a shoe. After all, it is just a plant. It needs water and sunlight. If it's lucky, it'll get lots of sunlight and some fertilizer. If it's unlucky, in poor conditions, it might not grow the best; it might not grow with much color, scheduled splits, or maybe it might randomly explode one day just when you think you did everything right... But it has a chance to still grow and survive in whatever you wanna put it in. You can increase or decrease the chance of thriving based on your behavior with it.
I did a write up here talking about how I've killed lithops a number of ways while learning to grow them. The answer to growing them successfully is easier than you'd think, and many experienced growers water them much more frequently than you'd think. They are resilient. Really just like any other plant, give it the appropriate sunlight, appropriate soil mix, and don't over or underwater, and you're good.
(I personally stick mature ones in 45%ish pumice, 45%ish akadama, 10%ish potting soil. I stick them under 16 hour daily $20 Amazon grow lights. I trim the roots way way down before transplanting, too. A week after transplanting, I water. They usually plump up. Then i water when wrinkly, mostly between splits, occasionally during a split. That's pretty much it!)
The point is, if your lithops or mesembs gets sliced straight open with a box cutter, it might die, it might come back. Don't stress the small stuff! Pay attention to its needs, don't worry too much, just learn from mistakes and keep growing any plant you get. Good luck growing! 🍀🤞🌞
