The resurrection project
A few months ago, a friend gave me a lithops as a gift and although I love lithops, I stopped keeping them because you can never have just one and it always gets out of hand. I have tried to be restrained and so far, I only have 4 pots of lithops.
The other day, a neighbour at work saw me packing some plants into my bag to take home and asked me if I knew how to keep lithops. I said yes and she replied that she gives up on hers, do I want them. I said sure! and went to collect them.
For those with sharp eyes: that's not a lithops, but a very long-suffering Pleiospilos nelii in the top left
This is what happens when people get carried away and spend a lot of money on plants they have no experience keeping: she didn't give them nearly enough water and they were seriously dehydrated. They had grown a full cycle with insufficient water and so were getting smaller and smaller. Although it's winter and it's best not to water them at this time, I decided to try and start rehydrating them immediately so I watered them thoroughly and removed the dried outer husks of the outer leaves.
Almost a week later, most are looking considerably better but the cleanup revealed another problem: mealiebugs
The white fluff is a sure sign of these pests and I found some live ones in among the leaf husks. It's unusual for Lithops to be attacked by mealiebugs and a consequence of them having been kept so dry: all plants are vulnerable to pests when they are water-stressed. I've sprayed with insecticide but I will have to use a systemic insecticide at the next water to be sure that they are gone, if I want these plants to thrive. I am keeping them indoors overnight so that the warmer night temperatures will stimulate them to start growing more actively and hopefully by this time next year, things will be very different.
You must be running out of room for all your plants /.. You seem to have so many... :-)
I am. But the plan is to start selling
This turns out to be such a big difficulty with growing plants. It takes a lot of knowledge to grow them properly.
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Hi nikv! I don't know the seasons from you, but some of those lithops seem to be in the period of moulting and perhaps it would be better not to give water. During the moulting, the internal leaves absorb nourishment from the external ones that are gradually drying out. In the last photo, if you look closely you can see the new leaves under the crack
@cooltivar lithops do start forming new leaves in winter but it's just the angle in the last photo that suggests new leaves and these lithops are so water-starved, if you look at the top photo: some of the new leaves didn't even grow enough to break out of those old husks from the previous season. My healthy lithops are busy forming new leaves, but these, I wasn't even sure if the roots were still alive. Lithops tolerate occasional watering in winter