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Mr. Shimada's de Boer are again slightly different.

Chocolaty de Boer and nobly pale C300. Dorotheae de Boer are from the Succulent Expo in Tokyo 2010 .

Yasuhiko Shimada's bromfieldii 'White Nymph' The plants look just like C279 but have white flowers. I very much hope to see them in the fall.

Remember the sulphureas ? They've turned out to be quite moody. As briefly mentioned before, we've had summer temperatures and lots and lots of sunlight for several weeks. The sulphureas decided they don't need to deal with this and just went into mid-summer stasis. They're still healthy and firm, no worries there,  but I'd like them to grow, not sleep. Funny thing, I had a couple of weaker sulphureas standing in the corner of the window so that they get less sun and they've grown a lot since then. Now I've moved the rest there as well. Hopefully they will like the new location more.  I find the color difference very curious (check out the same plants from the older post).

No, these are not the remains of an old leaf, this is the 4th head. Its other half is way down by the roots for some reason.  :)

... don't sow if it's too hot and sunny, lithops don't like it very much. I was already getting worried as the Green Horn and Ventergreen seeds took their time germinating. But after a couple of rainy days there they came. I'm sure they would germinate even better in the fall: these were harvested in February and might still be a bit too fresh.  L. lesliei v. hornii 'Green Horn' L. lesliei v. venteri 'Ventergreen' These were a product of selfing and I actually didn't expect anything to germinate. We'll see how they'll develop.

I could no longer watch the young lesliei v. mariae squash each other so I've put 6 of them in a separate container. The others should have more space now. And also, I'm curious to see the difference in their development, having read that transplanting young seedlings stimulates them to grow faster i.e. get new leaves sooner. They are now almost 7 months old, going up to 1cm in length. Please note that the roots are at least 6cm long by now. In case you are planning to sow you should keep this in mind. The pots should indeed be 7-8 cm deep even for such tiny seedlings, or you'll need to repot them very soon. The pic below is of the "main" container before they got more space :)

Last year in Japan I bought two karasmontana 'Top Red' plants. Back then I was wondering why they differ so much in their looks but now I think the reason lies in the different sources I bought them from. After a year of growing in the same conditions and receiving the same care they look pretty much the same to me.

Can you believe it? Another great find in the local garden center. In a very good condition, too ;)