Mrs.Green windowsills-growing cacti against the odds (links on page 9)

[teo]

Is this the spiny Euphorbia ? https://www.giromagi.com/en/shop/euphor ... onii/44214

[Mrs.Green]

Is this the spiny Euphorbia ? https://www.giromagi.com/en/shop/euphor ... onii/44214

Thank you very much Teo! It certainly looks very alike!

[Mrs.Green]

I will have to repot and change substrat for all these new plants..but I am more than uncertain what to do with the Lithops.. The substrate seems wrong but as already said, reading about them before buying them, I got a bit confused about their care.. Reading more after buying, even more.. Some places it’s warned against repotting, since there is a chance of hurting the taproots and other places doesn’t mention this.

Apart from a flatpadded Opuntia I also bought ( which wasn’t a good idea , if this ones grows to be big..) who have rootmealies, no sight of unwanted ‘pets’ coming along with the new plants. But after learning the hard way, I will keep these away from the other cacti I have.

The Opuntia tuna ‘Cristata’ looks much better now. I wouldn’t have thought about using this reviving method on a cacti, haven’t it been for the person ( can’t remember whom though) posting about it on the forum, if you are reading this, thank you very much!

[Mrs.Green]

So..most of the new cacti/succulents repotted Here are the repotted ones, some of them very small! The pot they came in only 3 cm. in diameter. ( the last 5 pics)

[Mrs.Green]

Lithops

After reading up again on Lithops today, I still wonder if they should be treated as summer or wintergrowers.. Among a lot of other things..

Fairly certain though that the substrate they grew in was very wrong, I decided to repot them today. So now I may have killed the whole bunch.. As seen they all were in one pot, strangly enough they seemed to multiply after taking them out of the pot, so I ended up with no less then 5 pots with Lithops.. I decided to try out which substrate suited them best under my less than ideal conditions for Lithops. So now there are 5 different mixes, from pure gravel to mix with a bit of soil in.

[greenknight]

I think that in Norway you should treat them as summer growers.

[Mrs.Green]

[quote=greenknight post_id=387635 time=1625100341 user_id=6227]
I think that in Norway you should treat them as summer growers.
[/quote]

Thank you very much Greenknight ! I was leaning towards that too but got a bit confused about the different advices . The treatment of Lithops ( as far as I understand) is difficult to wrap my mind around, I must confess.. It goes against every instinct regarding plantgrowing, to not water them or give them any water before repotting..The roots seemed very dry and my instinct tells me,give them some water, to get the roots going.. The plants themselves though , don’t look not dehydrated?

It will be interesting to see if any of these survives.

[Mrs.Green]

[b]Flowers [/b]

I stayed up late last night, afraid I wouldn’t see the flowers on E.subdenuta open but I got tired and went to bed. This morning these beauties welcomed me

Coming home today one of the buds on the Fero had opened up, what a treat!

[greenknight]

Lovely flowers!

As for Lithops watering, it's really not complicated - during the growing season, water them when they start to wrinkle from dehydration. During the dormant season, don't water them. The hard part is controlling the urge to nurture them.

[K.W.]

Good evening Mrs Green,

beautiful plants and flowers!
Lithops are long-day plants - summer growers - and can not be dissuaded.
They need a lot of sun in the summer. But also a lot of water and fertilizer.
My plants live in the greenhouse and are cared for together with the cacti.

Water until mid-November and then again from the beginning of March.
When I repot Lithops I shorten the roots to a third.
This speeds up the growing and the losses are minimal.
I use as substrate pure mineral substrate, pumice, lava, zeolites.

If I may say so - put the plants deeper into the substrate.


Best regards

K.W.



Examples . . .
266700

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266728

266738

[keith]

Where I live Lithops don't water them much or they rot, and rot fast. Just a few sprays from a spray bottle will fatten them up. Pretty amazing plants.

Around here they seem to grow in Spring and Fall . Dry in Winter they will get wrinkled but that's OK. I grow them in mostly sand after losing way too many in Pumice.

[Mrs.Green]

[quote=greenknight post_id=387655 time=1625170606 user_id=6227]
Lovely flowers!

As for Lithops watering, it's really not complicated - during the growing season, water them when they start to wrinkle from dehydration. During the dormant season, don't water them. The hard part is controlling the urge to nurture them.
[/quote]

Thank you very much Greenknight! The flowers on the E.subdenuta tells me that the cacti should have been placed even closer to the window..the flowers are not upright but stretching towards the window. I would guess the flowers should be upright and not stretching sideways towards the window..

No, I guess its not as complicated as it seems to me.. But I have a feeling that I have bought a horse but with following instructions; ‘This may look like a horse, but whatever you do , do not treat it like a horse or it will die!

[quote=keith post_id=387658 time=1625181012 user_id=6370]
Where I live Lithops don't water them much or they rot, and rot fast. Just a few sprays from a spray bottle will fatten them up. Pretty amazing plants.

Around here they seem to grow in Spring and Fall . Dry in Winter they will get wrinkled but that's OK. I grow them in mostly sand after losing way too many in Pumice.
[/quote]

I don’t think your info is wrong, not at all but I have a hard time understanding that just misting will keep them going, unless they are able to take up water trough their stomata? A few sprays from a bottle will hardly get the substrate wet enough to reach the roots?

[quote=K.W. post_id=387656 time=1625175253 user_id=5395]
Good evening Mrs Green,

beautiful plants and flowers!
Lithops are long-day plants - summer growers - and can not be dissuaded.
They need a lot of sun in the summer. But also a lot of water and fertilizer.
My plants live in the greenhouse and are cared for together with the cacti.

Water until mid-November and then again from the beginning of March.
When I repot Lithops I shorten the roots to a third.
This speeds up the growing and the losses are minimal.
I use as substrate pure mineral substrate, pumice, lava, zeolites.

If I may say so - put the plants deeper into the substrate.


Best regards

K.W.



Examples . . .
266700[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36991][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6488.jpg[/img][/url]

266706[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36992][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6489.jpg[/img][/url]

266711[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36993][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6490.jpg[/img][/url]

266712[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36994][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6491.jpg[/img][/url]

266721[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36995][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6492.jpg[/img][/url]

266722[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36996][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6493.jpg[/img][/url]

266723[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36997][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6494.jpg[/img][/url]

266726[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36998][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6495.jpg[/img][/url]

266728[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/36999][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6496.jpg[/img][/url]

266738[url=https://servimg.com/view/16323073/37000][img]https://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/16/32/30/73/bild6497.jpg[/img][/url]
[/quote]

Hi K.W , thank you very much Your Lithops ( and all the plants I have seen in your blog) seems so healthy and happy! If I was a traveller ( and I’m not) and you accepted visitors, going trough your greenhouses must be fantastic!

Thank you very much for your advice! I am aware of the fact that they are to high up in the substrate, I wasn’t sure how deep to plant them , since they seems to be a bit etiolated? I went for the ‘ try to plant them at the same depth as they were before’ repotting solution. Hoping that if they survived my care, the next set of leaves would come up at the right height, so to speak.

But I should maybe repot them again, burying their ‘necks’ in the substrate?

[Mrs.Green]

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This is the Opuntia tuna ‘Cristata’ after a ‘hydroponic’ recovery. The plant must have doubled its weight and there were a lot of healthy and hairy roots on it, when I potted it.

The next pic is my old friend the Echinopsis sp. I have had for at least 10 year . Not much to look at perhaps but despite going through various hefty treatments to get rid of the mealies it have had for years, it have graced me with lovely and fragrant flowers for years. After the last treatment some months back, it took a turn for the worse and I feared it was going to die. I belived it to have gone blind but recently it started to grow again. All the new pups it have produced had to go, since they provide good hiding spaces for mealies.

I suspect the reason for lack of success with eradicting the mealies is due to only one treatment.. So this time I will do a better job. Hoping to get rid of them, once and for all this time.

Taking it out of its pot I was happy to see it had a lot of healthy new roots . It also reminded me of taking notes..despite the fact its less than a year since I repotted it, I didn’t remember that I had used so little organic soil in the mix. Its less than it looks in the pic.

[keith]

I don’t think your info is wrong, not at all but I have a hard time understanding that just misting will keep them going, unless they are able to take up water trough their stomata? A few sprays from a bottle will hardly get the substrate wet enough to reach the roots? "

yea weird huh . I just did it a couple days ago and the Lithops went from wrinkled to plump. I used to water them until the water ran out the bottom of the pot and a week later dead Lithops. I think they can take a big watering in Spring and Fall ? I'm still somewhat new to Lithops.

I bought a couple Lithop plants years ago and watered them like cactus no problem then in 2016 I grew a couple hundred from seed and these turned out to be much more difficult . So I guess the ones I bought at local nurseries were the easy hard to kill type just like cactus found at the same nurseries. Water too much and its OK. The mixed pack on the other hand must have many other species that don't tolerate that kind of watering. first few years OK then water and a week later death . So with half surviving I water very carefully now and added more sand to the mix.

these are all grown outside in cold frames ( never really gets too cold here or hot) so take that into consideration with your own environment conditions.

I did Visit a Tucson Nursery 'plants for the southwest" that also grows lithops in a hidden greenhouse I didn't see them but the worker said they just mist them not deep watering. I don't know what they grow them in ? peatmoss and pumice ? IDK ? very dry there you can get away with allot of water but they still just mist them . Possibly because the Lithops go dormant in High Summer and watering will kill them.

[Mrs.Green]

Thank you very much Keith What I have problems with understanding, is the root part, so to speak. To be able to take up water from the substrate, the roots must be alive and have roothairs? When repotting these( the ones I bought) the roots seemed very dry and not alive. The rootneck was also very thin. So I really have a hard time understanding that plants with dead or damaged roots ( which I suspect in this case) can access any water given or grow new roothairs with hardly any moisture hitting the roots?

Watching some videos last night about ‘How to do’ with newly aquired Lithops, I wasn’t less confused..This lady ( off course I don’t remember her name but she have several videos on Lithops care on Youtube) treated the newly arrived Lithops more like ‘normal’ plants . She put the Lithops in the sink and washed soil off them, apparently not afraid of rot. She did dry them before repotting though with a fan.