It is gloomy-rainy with temperatures from 8 °C to -2 °C outside. While one of the salicolas has given up on its last flower, the yellow-edge-helmutii's flower buds are growing quickly. These plants are strange!
Time to update you on some of the seedlings. Rabiea albipuncta are now 6 months old and look much more mature than only 2 months ago . Glad to see that a couple of them still show the distinct red leaf tips. They are currently having seven-month-old Frithia pulchra kids as neighbors. It is supposed to be a red (or redder) flowering variety but since Frithias never flower for me it's only theoretically different from the other Frithia pulchra plants I own. PS: I really need to take some lithops pictures. I can't seem to be able to take any good ones lately...
I was able to free some room with magic (otherwise known as transplantation and clever tray placement) and could get myself more mesembs. I have several pots with seedlings that will need more room sometime soon but I'm going to ignore this fact for now ;) The new guys are: Ebracteola wilmaniae It arrived with the rests of a flower. Nice light rose color and lovely see-through leaves. Argyroderma fissum I find it curious because if you think of an Argyroderma you think of a spheroid. This one has long leaves. A bit wrinkly but a week after this picture was taken it has shown a good growth. By the way, you can see a little clay jug (with a cat drown on it) to the right. This is what I use to water my plants from, i.e. to measure how much water they get per pot. The regular watering means half the jug for a pot just like on the picture below (ca 5x5x8,5 cm). I take a full jug if the plant is seriously thirsty. Gibbaeum geminum An old and beautifully bonsai-like plant. I actually go...
I read about this substrate mix (also, @LeatherSolis uses it whose plants look amazing!) so I've decided to try it, too. Don't get me wrong, I love pumice and I'll keep using it, but I just need to satisfy my curiosity. Both Akadama and Kanuma substrates are mostly used for bonsai in these parts of the world. Apparently in Japan it's beeing used a lot for mesembs, too. The qualities of both substrates seem to be similar to pumice. Akadama (brown) is slightly acidic, Kanuma (yellow) - more. I'm going to try it with a couple of adult plants as well as for sowing (more Akadama, less Kanuma, maybe with some vermiculite mixed in) and report on my observations.
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