Growing Living Stones at 63rd Parallel North

i watered and fertilized my living stones on the 4th and the 12th of august. i do not rememeber why i have been watering so sparsely. i do however have a notification on my calendar to water the living stones on the 19th of august although i have no written note to prove i did do that. it is possible i forgot it entirely or i decided to see if i can spread out the watering now that my seedlings are about to turn 1 year old.

on the 4th of july i water my conophytum plant and begin increasing the daylight hours. on the 6th of july i notice that my conophytum plant has a tear in the middle. i am afraid it is almost bursting because of too much watering. i also increase the daylight hours and the plant lamps are now on for 15 hours. on the 7th of july i water and fertilize all of the other living stones except my conophytum plant. on the 14th and on the 21st of july i water and fertilize all of my living stones including my conophytum plant. it has survived against all odds. on the 26th of july i water and fertilize all of my living stones including my conophytum plant. i also record the temperature indoors + 24 °C. this summer's highest temperature indoors has been + 29 °C.

i am watering my conophytum plant still more often than the rest of the living stones. i water it on the 6th and the 12th of june. i also water all my living stones on the 9th and the 14th of june. besides watering i also fertilize all of them on the 30th of june. in the beginning of the month i let the plant lamps stay on for 16 hours but towards the solstice i reduce the hours to only 10 hours a day. it is because at that time i receive guests and i don't want them to be disturbed by the light when they are sleeping in my living room. i am also away for the end of the month and i decide i don't want to find my plants dried into raisins when i return. i am not sure if this is possible but it feels safer to leave the lamps on for only 10 hours a day instead of full 16 hours. i decided to have a break with fertilizing my plants after the transplant. nobody told me to do it, i just felt like doing it was the right thing to do. currently i fertilize with my cactus and succulen...

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

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...

i water and fertilize my living stones on the 7th of april and notice that one of the conphytum plants has dried up and died. i watered the living stones just a week ago but it clearly was not enough. on the other hand both argyroderma plants are changing their leaves the second time. on the 9th i transplant the last living conophytum plant to a smaller pot. i realize it's too early but the plant is too tiny compared to its nursery pot. before i transplant my conphytum i remember to rinse the pumice. at this time my conophytum is also finally changing its leaves for the second time - its second set of true leaves. to me the conophytum calculus seem the most finicky of the bunch. only one out of ten has survived this far. i keep the photoperiod at 12 h/day during this month. as i receive guests this month i fiddle with the timer to keep the lights on during more pleasant hours such as 10 am to 10 pm versus 7 am to 7 pm. my guests sleep in the living room so i do not wish to dist...

this month i continued gradually lenghtening the photoperiod (daylenght) with my plant lamps. at the end of the month i had my plant lamps on for 12 h/day. during this month i discovered that the monilaria plants were beginning to grow very strongly towards the light source and that one of the argyroderma plants had also begun changing its leaves the second time. i bottom watered and fertilized my living stones on the 6th, the 16th (one conophytum plant was wrinkled), the 22nd and on the 29th of march. a new monilaria leaf tip turned bright red after bursting into light.