June 2 - transplanting the rest of my living stones

i water my only conphytum. because of the growing algae problem i am ready to transplant the rest of my living stones. i first rinse pumice and fill the new pots with it. i carefully transplant the living stones and observe that i have 18 monilaria plants, 2 argyroderma plants and 3 lithops plants. i choose a shallow but wide container for the monilaria. it used to be a plastic instant food container. i plant the argyroderma and the lithops in clay pots. clay will help the containers to dry faster since i don't have so many plants left. i separate the algae infested pebbles from the old pumice and only boil the cleaner ones which i pack away to wait for further use.

my monilaria plants

my argyroderma plants

my lithops plants

Comments

May 2 to 28

i continue watering the only conophytum more often than the rest of the living stones. i am a bit scared it could die at any moment because of the transplanting and because its neighbor did die of drought. i water the conophytum plant on the 2nd (it shows clear wrinkles), the 8th, the 15th and on the 22nd of may. i just let room temperature water run through the pot. in addition i bottom water and fertilize all of the living stones on the 5th, the 12th, the 19th and on the 28th of may. i also gradually increase the amount of light my plants receive until it is about 16 h/day at the end of the month. my only conophytum on the 7th of may . the conophytum plant is residing in a 125 ml cup because it is so tiny. the cup didn't have a drainage hole originally so i needed to drill one in it. you can find several tutorials from youtube by searching for "drilling hole ceramic pot". the important part is to use a correct drill bit and to remember to use water to prevent t...

Living stones?

according to wikipedia i am growing plants from the family aizoaceae . they are sometimes also called ice plants or mesembs. according to wikipedia they belong to the subfamily ruschioideae and the tribe ruschiae. my plants belong to the genera argyroderma , conophytum , lithops and monilaria. the exact species are argyroderma delaetii, conophytum calculus , lithops (mix of unknown species) and monilaria moniliforme.

First flowering!

in february i notice something new. one of my lithops plants which is splitting into two new sets of leaves is also growing flower spikes! one of them seems to be developing faster than the other. i know it's the wrong time of the year for this and especially since the splitting is happening at the same time. i think the plant is confused because i have treated it like an immature plant and kept watering and fertilizing it regularly after the first year milestone. the plant hasn't absorbed properly its previous leaves either. because splitting time is usually a sign that living stones shouldn't be watered and since my plant seems so confused i decide to stop watering all of the lithops plants and my argyroderma plant which is also splitting. i stop watering right after the first bloom opens. the first bloom lasts 4-5 days. unfortunately i was away for a night and cannot say for sure how long the flower lasted. it had withered when i returned. however i noticed that the ...

Growing Living Stones at 63rd Parallel North

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