So I’ve gotten lots of questions about how I grew my lithops seeds so I wanted to do a little explanation post! So, to start off, these are my lithops (some picture current and some not).
Watering adults: Lithops are supper picky about watering and they go through cycles. For adult plants, during winter time they start to shrivel and split (as seen in the small plant above). During this time, which is several months long, you Do Not water. If you do, they will likely rot, or the old leaves will stay plump so the new leaves won’t be able to break forth and then they’ll break through the side and it’ll be ugly. Once they have completely finished shedding their new leaves, you can water them thoroughly whenever they seem wrinkly. Here’s a graphic that goes into more detail:
Watering Seedlings: Seedlings are a lot different than the mature plants. For them I water every day for the first month, every other day in the second month, every 3 days in the 3rd month, and so on and so forth until they are maybe a year old (not for sure on this since I haven’t gotten to that point yet with my own seedlings). It’s also usually a safer bet to go with less water rather than more after about midway through the 2nd month, so it’s okay to skip some waterings, they’re supposed to be drought tolerant.
Soil: lithops do not like to stay wet, so the recommended soil mixture for all lithops is 70% or more inorganic mixed with organic soil. My mixture is 50% 1cm - 3cm pumice mixed with 15% very gritty sand and 5% perlite (lots of people also don’t suggest perlite because it holds water and in seedlings the taproot can get stuck in it) and then for my organic soil I use some succulent soil I have. I also put an extra layer of the gritty sand on top of the seedlings to help stabilize them, when I tried going without the sand my baby lithops fell over a lot and died :( if you don’t have all these ingredients it’s okay, small pebbles will work too and my bigger plants aren’t in quiet the right mixture and they’ve been okay so far (I’m waiting to repot them until after they’ve split). (Also, that starting the seeds in cotton method and then moving them over to soil is very bad- you get just as good of growth rate if you start them on soil and moving them over from cotton to soil really damages the roots and you loose a lot of them from that)
Light: So this one’s tricky, they like A Lot of sun, but they can also get sunburned if they get direct sunlight all day. That being said, I keep them a little bit further away from my very strong plant light. They can stretch, so if you notice that you need to immediately start increasing they’re light if you can because it can be really hard for the plant to correct itself. Lithops are supposed to be very compact plants, not several inches long. Also, for young plants, they also need slightly shaded, but bright light. The first time I tried growing lithops seeds I put them off to the side so they were getting very shaded light and it severely stunted them and ended up killing them.
Potting: Lithops grow long tap roots and all of my bigger plants aren’t actually correctly potted right now :( they like to have at least a 5 inch deep pot so they can go deep. For seedlings though, they only need a couple of inches since you’ll be repotting them anyways once they’re bigger (4-5cm - around the size of my smallest single lithop).
Where to buy: I’ve bought all of my seeds from MesaGarden their website looks super sketchy, but they are legit and very good. They sell the cheapest seeds I’ve ever seen and have a ton of varieties (I just order the mixed lithops seeds). They can take a while to ship them to you, but like I said, they’re the best I’ve seen. There’s also OZ Lithops but I think they’re based in Australia and I find it easier for me to order from Mesa since I’m in the US. There is also Amazon and Etsy that you can order from, but it gets more risky there. Amazon has a lot of fake seeds (lots of seeds from China are fake), but micro landscapes does sell some real seeds (watch out because there’s also a fake micro landscapes account on amazon and they sell false seeds) and they give you a free little lithop too (that’s where I got my smallest one 😊). In my opinion though, the seeds I got from micro landscapes have not grown as quickly even though treated the same way, and they cost a lot more for a lot fewer seeds. Here’s a comparison with the Micro Landscape seedlings in the first pic and Mesa Garden seedlings in the second (they sit next to each other under the light and get the exact same treatment)
In conclusion: I’ve learned all I have about Lithops from the Love Lithops page on Facebook. They have a huge files list with all the best info and a ton of experts. They can be a little rude if you ask a question that is already in the files though so be wary of that! Also, if you are starting from seed, I suggest you start with small test batches. I originally just tried 25 out of my 100 and thank goodness I did because I completely wrecked my first try. The ones I’m always posting about is my second batch and I used the remaining 75 seeds. I’ve got another 1000 I’m waiting to plant in batches until I’ve seen how well these current ones grow. It’s okay if it doesn’t work out, that happens! Just learn from it and try again!
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