They really look like pebbles, which sometimes “crack” and produce either beautiful flowers of the original appearance or new leaves. The lithops flower is considered the most compact indoor plant: each “pebble,” which actually consists of two fused leaf plates of a peculiar shape, reaches a size of up to 5 cm.
Flower growers and collectors value lithops not only for their shape, but also for their interesting colors: they come in green, grayish, bluish, pink, brownish and other shades. A pattern of specks of different sizes and shapes is usually clearly visible on the surface of the leaves. The Lithops flower appears on a short peduncle and can be white, yellow or orange, up to 3 cm in size. In some types of Lithops, the flowers are not only beautiful, but also have a pleasant smell. Flowering in Lithops begins at 3–4 years of age.
The characteristic appearance of Lithops is a consequence of very difficult natural conditions in their habitats: these are hot, arid deserts with sandy or rocky soil, where long dry seasons alternate with periods of rain. In such circumstances, plants have to solve the problem of retaining moisture for a long time and minimizing its loss through the surface of the leaves. And camouflage “like a stone” is a way to protect yourself from being eaten by animals.
It is believed that lithops are sometimes able to change their color and pattern so as to blend in as closely as possible with the background in which they grow (1).
Types and varieties of lithops
More than 30 species of Lithops are found in the wild (2), but only a few of them are grown indoors, including artificially bred hybrid varieties. In general, lithops of different species are similar to each other in terms of their general structural plan and life cycle; only the details differ: final size, leaf shape, size of the growth gap between the leaves, shade of the leaves and flowers of the lithops.
On sale you can often find lithops called “mix”, when a whole set of multi-colored lithops of different types is planted in one container. The care requirements for different types of lithops are common, so the species does not affect the characteristics of keeping these plants. Of the interesting types of indoor lithops flower, the following can be mentioned.
Lithops aucampiae. Most often, this lithops is brown, with characteristic reddish spots, the size of the leaves is about 3 cm. The flower is yellow. There are forms of this lithops with different colors, for example the lilac Kuruman .
Lithops aucampiae. Photo: globallookpress.com
Lithops lesliei. Typically grayish or brownish, with very small, less than 2 cm, leaves. The flower is large, up to 5 cm, yellow, with a faint pleasant aroma. There are forms of Albinica with bright yellowish-green leaves, Venteri which is brighter than the usual Lithops Leslie, and several others.
Lithops lesliei. Photo: globallookpress.com
Lithops fulviceps . Brown lithops with a very interesting pattern that seems to be in relief, and the cylindrical shape of the leaves. The flowers are yellow, up to 3 cm in diameter. There is the Aurea with bright green leaves and yellow flowers, as well as the compact Lactinea , only about 1.5 cm in size.
Lithops fulviceps. Photo: globallookpress.com
Lithops dorotheae . A very small lithops up to 1 cm in size with an unusual pattern on the leaves, perfectly imitating the appearance of feldspar and other stones among which it grows. The flowers of this lithops are bright yellow.
Bromfield's Lithops (Lithops bromfieldii). Pinkish lithops with a beautiful pattern of dark red veins. The flowers of this lithops are white, red, and sometimes orange.
Bromfield's Lithops (Lithops bromfieldii). Photo: globallookpress.com
Useful video
We invite you to watch a video about transplanting lithops:
All the secrets of caring for lithops at home, as well as the peculiarities of growing plants from seeds, can be found on our website. We will tell you in detail about these original and amazing “living stones”.
Caring for lithops at home
Caring for lithops is relatively simple (3), if you have a good understanding of the characteristics of the annual life cycle of plants associated with the climate in their natural habitats. Most lithops are “active” only in spring and autumn. In autumn they bloom - the peduncle appears from the gap between the leaves. After flowering, a young pair of leaves appears from the growth gap, which should replace the previous one. In winter, young leaves grow slowly, literally “feeding” on old ones. At the beginning of spring, the old pair of leaves completely dies. In summer, lithops enter a dormant state - in their homeland this is the hottest time when growth is impossible. With the beginning of autumn, the annual cycle resumes.
When caring for a lithops flower, you need to monitor how seasonality manifests itself in a particular plant - indoor species sometimes “go astray” for several weeks. In addition, it is important to know that lithops are “collective” plants that cannot be planted individually. Single lithops develop poorly, bloom at an older age, or do not form flowers at all.
Priming
Lithops require a low-fertility, air- and water-permeable substrate with neutral acidity. Special soil for lithops is found on sale, but very rarely. Flower growers sometimes plant these plants in cactus soil; fine stone chips or pumice can be added to it.
Photo: globallookpress.com
If you prepare soil mixtures yourself, then for lithops you can mix sand, clay and garden soil in a ratio of 1.5:1:1, or sand, pumice and clay soil in a ratio of 1:1:2. It is best to sprinkle the surface of the soil in a pot with small stones: this not only enhances the decorative effect of the lithops, but also creates for them an imitation of natural living conditions.
Lighting
Lithops are native to very hot places with a lot of sun, so they require bright light and long daylight hours. It is believed that the optimal lighting regime for them is several hours of direct sun in the first half of the day and light shading in the second, especially during flowering. Similar conditions are fully ensured on windows of southern, southwestern and southeastern orientation. Lithops are not afraid of direct sun even in extreme heat, but when grown indoors they can suffer from sunburn in the spring, since during the winter they manage to “wean” from direct sunlight. At this time, lithops need to be shaded, gradually increasing their time in the sun.
In winter, plants require additional lighting; the lamp should be installed at a distance of 10 cm from the leaves. Sometimes additional lighting is also necessary in the warm season - for example, if the summer is cloudy and lithops do not receive sunlight for several days in a row. A sign of a lack of light is the stretching of leaf blades and loss of brightness of color.
Temperature
Lithops feel good at room temperature; summer heat does not harm them either. In summer, they can and should be taken out into the open air; daily temperature changes are even beneficial for them: they harden the plants and stimulate growth.
Photo: globallookpress.com
In winter, lithops require cool keeping, the optimal temperature range is from 10 to 14 °C, possibly lowering to 8 °C. It is clear that it is difficult to ensure such a temperature in an apartment, so it is permissible to keep Lithops at 17 – 20 °C. In winter, it is advisable to move the plants away from the cold window glass and place the pot on a stand, since lithops may suffer from proximity to cold surfaces.
Humidity
Lithops do not require high air humidity, so there is no need to spray them. This makes it easier to care for them at home. The only exception may be the period of active growth of young leaves and the death of old ones at the end of winter: at this time the plants are not watered, so if there is a lack of moisture, they can be carefully sprayed, making sure that water does not get into the gap between the leaves. A sign of water deficiency is wrinkling of leaves.
Watering
This is the main difficulty in caring for lithops, since the need for watering directly depends on the phase of the life cycle. In the summer, until about mid-August, the plants are not watered or watered very rarely, once a month and a half. In nature, lithops at this time experience hot and dry times, consuming moisture accumulated in the leaf blades. You can tell that plants need watering by the wrinkling of the leaf blades. If this does not happen, watering is not needed.
Starting from mid-August, lithops need water - in their natural habitats, this is the rainy season. Watering begins with small portions, gradually increasing the amount of water; in the intervals between waterings, the soil should dry out well. Lithops usually bloom at this time. After the flowers appear, watering is gradually reduced again and some time after flowering is stopped completely - the plants begin to prepare for the winter dormant period.
During cold wintering, lithops are not watered. If the plant overwinters in a warm place, you can water it once a season, but very sparingly and carefully, soaking the soil no more than 1 cm deep. In winter, lithops replace old leaves with young ones, sometimes this process is called “molting.”
Photo: globallookpress.com
In the spring, when the old leaves have completely died off, watering is gradually resumed. The most abundant watering is required approximately in the middle of spring, then it is reduced so that by the beginning of summer it stops completely.
When watering, make sure that water does not get on the leaves of the lithops and especially in the gap between them. Only the soil around them needs to be moistened. Water for irrigation should be moderately warm, tap water should be well settled or filtered.
It is important to understand that excess water is much more dangerous for lithops than its lack. These plants are adapted to very dry living conditions, so waterlogging quickly leads to rotting of the roots and leaves. The soil in the lithops pot should be dry most of the time, and after watering it should not remain wet for long.
Fertilizers
Lithops usually do not require fertilizer, especially if the plants are regularly replanted in fresh substrate. If their soil is not renewed, the plants can be fed with special compounds for cacti.
Feeding
Fertilizer is applied in liquid form along with watering, the dosage is 1/2 or even 1/3 of that recommended for cacti. It is clear that you can feed plants only during those periods when they are not dormant and need watering, that is, in spring and autumn. The frequency of feeding is 1 – 2 times per season. Lithops are not fed during flowering.
Trimming
Due to their growth habit, lithops do not require pruning. Removing old dead leaves is not recommended. Also, the flower stalks are not removed after flowering: in place of the flowers, fruits with seeds are formed.
Photo: globallookpress.com
Plant nutrition
Lithops do not need careful and mandatory feeding ; it will be enough to water them with melt water. You should start applying fertilizers at the beginning of vegetative growth (in spring). It is advisable to fertilize once a month, and it should be completed before flowering begins - in the fall.
The succulent can be fed with fertilizers for cacti, but you can use no more than half the dose recommended on the package for use. The most common remedies are Agricola, Life Force, Zdraven, Reasil, Master.
Reproduction of lithops at home
Lithops are usually propagated by seeds, since vegetative propagation is very difficult and is only accessible to experienced gardeners. Lithops seeds are available for sale; you can also obtain your own planting material by collecting seeds from existing plants.
Seeds are sown in early spring. The substrate for sowing is 1 part peat and 2 parts perlite, or the same as for adult plants. Before sowing, the seeds are soaked in any stimulant or simply in water for about 6 hours, then, without drying, distributed over a moistened substrate. Light is required for seedlings to emerge, so the seeds cannot be buried; the maximum sowing depth is 1 mm. Lithops seeds are small, so before sowing they can be mixed with sand for convenience. The container with the crops is covered with a transparent lid and kept in a warm place (from 24 °C) in bright light. Daily ventilation and periodic moistening of the substrate from a fine spray bottle are mandatory.
The time of emergence of seedlings is from 1 to 4 weeks. The lid from the mini-greenhouse is removed only a month after their appearance; young plants need high air humidity. When the seedlings reach a height of 1 - 1.5 cm, the surface of the soil can be covered with small pebbles or expanded clay of the finest fraction.
Plants grown from seeds become similar to lithops only at 4–6 months of life, when their first true leaves form. In the first year they are not planted; transplantation is possible only after wintering, in early spring.
Caring for a lithops flower in the first years of life is the same as for an adult. Flowering can be expected in 3–5 years.
What will be needed for the procedure?
To perform a lithops transplant, we may need:
Regular plastic or clay flower pots (necessarily with drainage holes).- Soil (except peat). You can use a standard mixture, which is characterized by low moisture holding capacity, high permeability, lack of humus and low nitrogen content: 9 parts coarse sand, 1 part loamy soil.
- Feeding: you can take fertilizers for cacti or other mixtures: 1 part of fine brick chips, coarse sand and ordinary soil, or 1 part of coarse sand and pumice to 2 parts of clay soil.
Lithops transplantation at home
Lithops grow slowly and require replanting no more than once every 3 to 4 years. They are usually replanted at the end of the winter dormancy period. The plant is removed from the pot, the roots are lightly shaken off the ground and inspected. The root system of Lithops consists of a long tap root and numerous branching lateral roots. If these roots are damaged during transplantation or rotten, they can be removed - the plant easily tolerates such operations. The taproot should be handled carefully; when transplanting into a new pot, care must be taken that it does not bend or form loops and is positioned as vertically as possible.
Photo: globallookpress.com
If you are replanting a lithops colony of several pieces, the distance between them should be at least 2 cm. When pouring soil into a new pot, you need to make sure that no voids form between the plants. The soil can be pressed down a little with your fingers, but it cannot be compacted. The neck of the plant (the place where the leaves turn into the root) can be located slightly below the ground level in such a way that after filling the surface with gravel, 3/4 of the height of the leaves is above the surface. Transplanted plants are watered for the first time only after a few days.
If the plant was purchased in a store, it must be replanted immediately, regardless of the time of year and phase of its life cycle. The transport substrate in which lithops are sold is usually not suitable for long-term cultivation, so the harm from being in such soil will be greater than from untimely replanting.
Problems
When growing lithops, problems sometimes arise, but only if the rules for caring for this plant are not followed. This succulent is known to require even less moisture than any cactus. Water it abundantly, but very rarely.
The earthen ball of Lithops must dry out between waterings for a long time, otherwise the plant will rot.
At first, root rot is not visible, then the plant simply falls over as it becomes soft and cannot be saved.
In low light, the succulent stretches out . Sometimes in the summer it grows a new pair of leaves, but the old one does not dry out. In this case, the flower grows in height and weakens. This will not happen if you keep the succulent in direct sun.
Also, many gardeners fail to achieve flowering of lithops.
It does not bloom due to insufficient lighting or lack of cold wintering.
If a flower is not watered in winter, but kept at room temperature, it may not bloom in summer.
Lithops diseases
With good care, the Lithops flower does not get sick, but with excessive or improper watering it can become affected by rot. This is the most common disease of the Lithops flower, especially among beginner succulent lovers. If, during watering, water gets on the leaves and in the gap between them, the above-ground part of the plant may rot. With excessive watering, lithops suffer from root rot.
In the first case, it is very difficult to save the lithops. If the roots are damaged, stop watering, remove the plant from the pot and remove all rotten roots. In case of severe damage, you can wash the root system with a solution of potassium permanganate. After this, the plant is transplanted into fresh soil.
General description with photo
Lithops are flowering succulents from the Aziz family with an excellent root system and an amazing ability to adapt to harsh environmental conditions. At the same time, they adapt not only to the climate of the area, but also to its landscape and lighting, easily changing their shape and color. Most often they are painted in a pale gray-green palette, merging with the dusty rocky soil of hot rocky deserts. During the daytime, they are able to survive in conditions of 50-degree heat and do not die at night, when the thermometer rapidly drops down. With such survival rate, keeping lithops at home, it would seem, does not threaten failure even for novice gardeners, however, their cultivation requires its own special care, based on very moderate human participation in the process of their life.
Characteristic of this plant is the disproportionate ratio of the volume of its roots to the aboveground part. Above the surface of the earth we see only two round fleshy leaves of a very small size, while at the same time numerous tenacious roots penetrate into the slightest cracks between rocky piles and cling to them, bit by bit obtaining food for themselves. The need for camouflage is due to the fact that in desert conditions every piece of lush greenery is a tasty morsel for food, so lithops are not so easy to notice, mistaking their shape and color for ordinary pebbles.
The height of the leaves does not exceed 5 cm in the largest specimens; in appearance they look like an egg cut crosswise, but they can also have other shapes, for example, the appearance of short cylinders. The color is usually close to gray, but there are varieties with bluish, brown, light green or raspberry-lilac leaves. There may be pronounced heterogeneity of color or a raised pattern. As a pair of leaves grows, they lose their elasticity, wrinkle and dry out, and a new one grows from the central hollow to replace it.
Lithops pests
The pests of lithops are the same as those of other indoor plants, most often they are mealybugs and spider mites.
If strange whitish lumps, plaque or cobwebs appear on the surface of the leaves, you need to carefully examine the lithops for pests. In case of minor damage, mechanical removal of parasites helps: the leaves of the lithops can be thoroughly wiped with a damp cloth or washed very carefully, being careful not to wet the soil too much. If there are a lot of pests, you need to use any suitable preparation: Actellik, Aktara, Fitoverm (4).
