You might describe me as controversial. I have been called a Lithops-watering-rebel. I speak sarcasm as a second language (spoiler alert). Sometimes being factual, open minded, experimental or simply not conforming to 90:10 pumice:organics or NO-watering-while-the-old-leaves-are-not-as-crisp-as-chip are considered controversial. Sometimes to illustrate a point, I shock by pouring a liter of water on a pot of Lithops optica cv ‘Rubra’ – taxon survive on 17mm measurable precipitation and daily fog or mist in their habitat. For some, acts like this is an irritation because it confronts the mind map they created over time. For others it challenge what they have learned from people they consider as their mentors. For others, it broadens their perspective and stimulate them to explore and try alternative cultivation techniques.
How often have you seen a newbie being ridiculed for planting Lithops with other mesembs – most often a split rock. Standard advice is ready on the clipboard to just paste as needed: “Idiot They all have different watering needs and cannot be planted together“. Most of the time, a probing question as to what these watering requirements actually are does not yield much information.
It did not bother me too much until I checked my Pleiospilos nelii plants they other day I have grown from seed ex Mesa Garden. The one locality read: Seekoeigat, Prins Albert ex Mesa Garden 1830. I glanced over to the pot of Lithops terricolor C134 and whisper by myself “Prins Albert Form”. Controversial indeed! These plants grow around the same town in South Africa! I have driven past Prins Albert many times but did not have time to go and look for plants in habitat.
So I decided to take the controversy a step further and collected some other genera from my collection that also have Prins Albert locallity data. Here is the list:
- Lithops terricolor (Prins Albert form ex C134)
- Cerochlamys pacyphylla
- Bijlia
- Cyllindrophyllum tugwellia
- Marlothistella uniondalensis
- Pleiospilos nelii
- Glottiphyllum neilii (yes neilli)
Now all are potted up together in a 40x30cm tray as depicted in the featured image.
The controversy deepens once one consider the monthly rainfall distribution of Prins Albert (credit climate-data.org)
In theory this is problematic to many people’s belief system similar to how a lunar eclipse is problematic to the Flat Earth society.
The first apparent problem is that Lithops terricolor (Prins Albert Form) receives precipitation in summer (Dec – Feb). The amount would equal to about 2.8 liters for February for my 40x30cm tray! It will keep the teaspoon waterers quite busy. People (from some distant continent) often try to argue that summer precipitation on Lithops are negligible. It may be negligibly compared to the Monsoon rain experienced elsewhere. But expressed as the total annual precipitation in Lithops habitat it remains significant.
The second observation is that in habitat it leaves no room for zero watering while splitting. That said, I am also not ignorant of the fact that plants in cultivation are different to plants in habitat and all parameters cannot be simply copied. For this reason I would not recommend in the foreseeable future that one cultivate in Lithops or any other plant in their native habitat soil. The main reason is that water retention and movement in containerised soils differ significantly from same soil in situ.
The very least we can say at this point is that the habitat conditions of at least one Lithops species appears to be in contradiction with often stated cultivation advice on at least 3 aspects.
The aim is to grow these plants together and give them a reference amount of water equivalent to what they would get in habitat (I will have to figured out the number of days of precipitation). While I agree that adhering to absolute amounts are nonsensical, one have to start at some reference point.
I will try to show progress of how things turn out – experiment have been going for 3 weeks. All the plants have rooted well within a week and offer nice resistance to a light tug.
Lithops Blog 