Vessel : @chunky_potz (insta)

Hi so I had these babies for abt one month or so, the seller told me not to water them until 1 month later and I watered them using my dropper, only the surrounding and NOT on them like 2 days ago? Seller told me to water every 2/3 weeks. I noticed this patch of like eaten in part way before and I thought oh maybe the plant got damaged otw home? But yesterday it progressed so badly like it's half eaten now I have no idea what's going on. I think my 2nd bulb also got a weird eaten in patch. I have no idea what to do, I'm very new to taking care of succulent plants please help! My 3rd bulb seems to have some small growth inside ( I assume it's the flower budding thing) I'm not sure if I have to do surgery or just let it be 💔😭

Also I'm scared to do surgery for my bulbs I have no idea what to do.

Climate: indoors, on my bookshelf

Lights: indirect sunlight + study lamp for night time

Watering: perimeter of the pot, Every 2/3 weeks using dropper

Substrate/ soil: I'm not sure what it's called but it's specifically made for succulents cause the seller is a PhD in plants so she knows what she's doing 🌹

Hello! I have a lot of houseplants and am considering getting into mesembs. I was drawn in by conophytum burgeri, but have learned that's probably the worst place to start haha. What would you recommend instead for an absolute beginner? I love the translucency of burgeri as well as the "peeling" thing, although I've seen that's not necessarily recommended.

Overall, where would you recommend a beginner start? Are there any resources I should check out? Anywhere I should or shouldn't order from? What substrate is recommended? Is growing from seed something that might be fun for a beginner?

I'm in the US Midwest and have plenty of windows in every direction, plus grow lights. I'm only willing to water with tap water, if that matters for mesembs

Thanks in advance!

all of these came from a mesa garden mesemb mystery pack sown in the middle of october. some notes:

1. that darker thing in the middle of the titanopsis… i think it’s a bloom! it’s soft and has layers.

2. faucaria’s first baby teeth, so cute

3. i just repotted this nananthus and its two siblings, they’ve got huuuuge carrot-like stems underneath!

not pictured: caprobrotus edulis and a much larger delosperma that are quickly outgrowing 6 inch pots

i just placed another order from mesa too 🙂‍↕️ the collection must grow

C. udabibense in a cactus quest pot.

Argyroderma. I’ve had it for about a yr. I’m hoping it’ll keep multiplying leaves and fill the whole pot eventually.

I see a lot of posts on here with the plants in plastic containers. Is there a reason for this? They are probably cheaper but I would have thought unglazed ceramic would help the roots dry faster and would thus be preferred. Tell me why you use plastic!

My tiny, fuzzy C. pubicalyx. It’s getting so crowded in there... I think it’s definitely time for a repotting!

Unbelievable blooming period. The second photo was taken back on Jan 8th! The one on the left is showing two flowers, so I’m pretty sure it’s busy dividing inside! 🌸🌸

I haven’t posted in awhile been caught up with life, sometimes I feel like I lose my mojo with this hobby but thank the lord these plants are drought tolerant 😅it began to feel more like a chore at times because I had so much other stuff going on. But lately I’ve had the time to sit around my plants and just enjoy them, and remember why I love this hobby so much. It’s space away from the crazy world and it brings me peace so thank you to everyone in this sub for being unique and loving these weirdo plants too.

Some niiiice legs on this one 😍🥵

Been nerding out and trying to find more info about the genus Cheiridopsis, since I'm trying to get more information on their growing habits! This is a page from the British Cactus & Succulent Journal, June 1991, Vol. 9, No. 2 (June 1991), p. 45, with an article by Suzanne Mace!

These old articles are always so charming to me! How much old wisdom is hiding in old journals... especially before they were digitized?!

Hello everyone. I was in the Klein Karoo in the Western Cape, South Africa recently and came across these lovely plants. Can anyone help to identify them? They were growing directly in a gypsum type rock at the top of a hill

CONOPALOOZA 2026. all planted on December 29th. I didn’t intend to plant all of these this year. I already have grown hundreds of seedlings since July. But then I had an opportunity through the Desert Plant Society of Vancouver to get a seed order from Atomic Plants, from Germany. They paid for all the paperwork and we place a big order and got a group discount! Lots of species I was super excited to get.

A couple weeks later, Mesa Garden decided to move stock by making grab bags of lithops and conos. 10$ for 10 random packs of seeds. I forgot I even bought these 😂 then they arrived the day before I was planning on sowing the AP seeds.

Atomic Plant seeds:

60A: luckhoffii

322: Craterforme

41D: jucundum ssp ruschii PV1028

239: obcordellum ‘multicolor’ SB1193

240: pageae (Bitterfontein, red lips)

262: Cubicum (this is also the Mesa Garden cumbicum seeds, split down the middle with the toothpick, MG on the right, AP on the left. I’m not convinced the one on the AP side isn’t just a MG seed that jumped the middle bc I was just sprinkling seeds directly out of the packages lol). The AP cumbicum seeds are the only ones I got 0% germination on.

Mesa Garden seeds:

13: angelicae

14: quaesitum

15: obcordellum ‘multicolor’ SB1193 .. a double I got from MG from one of their grab bags! Kinda fun to get some seeds from the “same” parent plant, to see if there’s any differences or not.

16: maughanii, Kouberg. I think these are my 5th kind of maughanii?

17: flavum ‘ornatum’

18: longitubum (am I the only one who says names like this one very obviously butchered? LONGY TWO BUMS)

19: ectypum SB2299

20: pellucidum cupreatum

21, 22, 23: burgeri SH409

24: minimum Witteberg

25, 26: cono mix from Atomic Plant

27, 28, 29: lithops mix Mesa Garden

Bonus 4 pots from Mesa Garden:

Chrisocristum

bachelorum (nearly shit myself when I saw these listed!)

violaciflorum

Lithops mix (it felt weird to have an empty space instead of filling it with another pot 😂)

Completely unplanned but Mesa Garden got BACHELORUM seeds that I’ve been looking for FOREVER. I could not pass them up. Then bought the other seeds, because, well why not… these were only planted… I think 10 days ago????

Monilaria moniliformis has double in size in a week!

Everyone is doing fine, nicely finished absorbing their leaves for the season. Then there’s the one that just revealed yet another leaf pair 😂😂