Titanopsis care questions

[CactusMad]

Hi,
I have had 8 Titanopsis bought for me for a present.They are very small,around 3cms,will these be alright in full sun and can i treat them like lithops? I have done research but just want to ask people that actualy grow them.

[iann]

The first thing to do is find out which species you have. Almost certainly T. calcarea, but if they came from a serious grower you might have one of the less common species, or even a selection of different ones.

T. calcarea is pretty easy. You don't have to follow a strict watering program like Lithops, but more or less the same plan. Autumn is the main growing season, but in England you can water right through summer - occasionally and always letting them dry out first. They are thoroughly hardy in winter, but need to be dry if they are going to be cold. Indoors they'll probably stretch horribly in winter so be stingy with the water. They're always much nicer grown hard.

You can certainly grow them in full sun. English sun will barely warm them up, let alone burn them.

Buds appear in autumn, maybe even on your little plants. The flowers on mine tend to straggle on through winter, but some summer water and autumn sun will get them done when they're supposed to.

[CactusMad]

Hi Iann,
I have 1 schooneesii, 2 calcarea,2 primosii,1 fulleri and 2 luederitzii.

Do any of these need any different care? and thank you.

[iann]

Aha, you have quite a mixed bag!

T. calcarea shouldn't cause you any trouble, just make sure it isn't in some rich peaty soil. John Innes plus lots of grit, cat litter, perlite, pumice, of something similar. I also add limestone chips, probably not entirely necessary.

T. primosii, T. fulleri, and T. luederitzii are winter growing species. They should be left dry in hot weather, particularly once nights are warm. Persist in trying to keep them fat through summer and they'll rot. Despite being called winter growers, they really don't need much water in winter in England. Water in autumn and spring, flowers likely in April. They're all lumped into the same species now (T. schwantesii) and have slightly different leaves but more or less the same flowers and the same behaviour.

T. schoonesii got moved and is now called Aloinopsis schoonesii. You can probably see it looks quite different, and the flowers are also different. It is fairly tolerant. It will be summer dormant in a heatwave but most of the time it will be happy enough to get a drink. Aim to water it deeply in spring and then whenever it looks really thirsty. Always let it dry out in between. It will grow a big fat root and it can rot. Very cold hardy (dry), loves the sun.

T. calcarea:

calcarea-1124b.jpg (47.31 KiB) Viewed 5763 times

T. primosii

primosii1.jpg (86.17 KiB) Viewed 5763 times

A. schooneesii

schooneesii2.jpg (92.04 KiB) Viewed 5763 times

[CactusMad]

Thank you very much for that Iann,i have printed the info out for reference,i hope that is o.k ? They are on a south facing windowsill which gets very hot on sunny days,will they be o.k sitting in that?

[Saxicola]

Ian's advice is great, especially because he has a similar climate to you.

I was just about to recommend Steve Hammer's writeup about growing all kinds of mesembs and I just discovered it is gone! If anyone knows somewhere else that hosts his "New Mastering the Art of Growing Mesembs" please post it here.

Edit: Looks like the old page is still in Google's cache, but who knows for how long. I HIGHLY, and I mean HIGHLY, recommend finding the cached version on Google and saving the file. It is a one page text writeup so it is easy to do. I just saved it myself. Just do a search for the title in quotes above.

[CactusMad]

Hi,I have looked and looked and it just keeps saying it's been retired.

[Aiko]

I have found a copy of the lost Hammer's article. Here is the part on Titanopsis: http://www.vivante-passerelle.net/index ... is-en-gb-2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I suspect it is the same. I cannot compare the text with my printed version right now. I think it is, as the Muiria text seems like what I can remember of it.

Here's the index page: http://www.vivante-passerelle.net/index ... ng-mesembs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CactusMad]

Thank you very much for that Aiko.

Iann that article says that T.fulleri is a summer grower?

[iann]

Thank you very much for that Aiko.

Iann that article says that T.fulleri is a summer grower?

My mistake. T. fulleri is just a synonym of T. calcarea. You should be able to distinguish your plants by appearance rather than by label. T. calcarea and synonyms have mostly grey flattened spoon-shaped leaves while T. schwantesii and synonyms have more rounded club-shaped leaves that are often quite pale.

[CactusMad]

Thank you for clarifying that Iann.something else I've learned

[Saxicola]

Thanks for the link Aiko! They do host the same writeup there. I've now bookmarked it.

CactusMad, You were probably just Googling it if you got that retired page. I said you need to look at the cached page, which is a small link under the main link on googles page. The cached version is still there. Anyway, Aiko's link looks good so just bookmark that.