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I actually feel bad calling them seedlings. After all they are now 2,5 years old and adult-looking in size and shape. All they need is to finally flower. But none of my own seedlings has flowered yet so I don't dare hope. You really get best plants if you grow them from seed. It might take long but the results are worth it. Strong and healthy, perfectly shaped and colored, they never went through the acclimatization pain. They just grow as they grow and are happy with what they've got. Something to be envious about. You can look up their progress by clicking on the "seedlings 2010" tag below.

These are my 2 months old Titanopsis calcarea seedlings. Aren't they cute? Check out those warts! I'm not sure I'm doing everything right with them (I've lost a couple, five remaining), but I'm watching them closely and hopefully learning. 

These dorotheae took their time to regenerate. They haven't been watered for 8 months but still change their leaves extremely slowly. Well, the main thing is they do. These are also "de Boer" but from a different source. Depending on the light conditions they can be really chocolaty dark. This year not so much.

Frithia pulchra flowers are comming up! Unfortunately it's the Frithia I bought a month ago, which is much less exciting than if my own Frithias would flower. They don't. But any flowers are worth looking forward to. The times will come when mine are all in bloom, too. This is probably not really newsworthy but I find it interesting. I'm currently growing offsprings of a deceased Frithia humilis that had pretty weird looking leaves → click click . I was hoping they'd show something similar with time, that's why it was really nice to discover a tiny tentacle on one of their leaves. Hope to see more of this.

These Cheiridopsis are new tenants on my windowsill. Thanks to Bob Stewart for pointing out that their proper new name is Ch. denticulata. :) I'm always very excited to grow new Mesembs so I'm looking forward to hopefully not killing them. These are winter growers and I'm still not sure about the watering schedule. It says you start watering in the fall when the old leaves have dried up and the new ones emerge. As I understand the old leaves are almost digested on these plants. But am I allowed to water them before fall or not? Many things to figure out... At the moment I just enjoy the view: beautiful velvety leaves with slightly see-through tips, very unusual rib-like shape and the shining cyan blue color.

I've mentioned in the previous post that I've performed a surgery on my older Stomatium plant, mother of the seedlings I'm growing. As a result of wrong care over the winter (occasional watering) the plant had grown more than it should and went "overboard" while drying up old leaves and leaving ugly dry branches. It looked like this: Nice rich heads (with new branches and all) on brown sticks. Not a good look and these things don't get corrected by themselves. You have to act radically. So why not get rid of the dried up branches? I've cut all the green parts and cleaned the stems. Eight cuttings all in all, which is way too many for me. So I kept three and gave away five to a good home.  They took root very quickly and look healthy as far as I can tell. I'll try to be more careful with water from now on. Maybe this way I'll be able to keep the plants in a compact shape.

I had to transplant these two Stomatium seedlings away from the little Titanopsis because back in their common pot it was a battle for resources the latter couldn't win. I didn't expect them to grow that fast! Conclusion: If you're not patient with Mesembs in general just grow Stomatiums from seed and you'll have a couple of plants that will fill out a 5x5cm pot and almost look like adults, "starry night" see-through dots and cute little teeth, in only two months. ;) Their mother-plant has recently had a surgery because it grew too big and weird. I've kept and rooted three branches while other five are now residing over in Portugal. I'm very happy all parts of the plant are doing fine. :) The "refreshing" surgery was a really good idea.

Only several sunny days and it's mostly cold and dark again. Good thing Neohenricia sibbettii doesn't need sunlight to open its flowers. I've counted 5 flower buds so far, most of them growing out of the parts that went "overboard". I'll be checking on them at night. The pot is definitely too small. If I had more room I'd put the plant in a large but shallow container and let it grow in all directions. A large Neohenricia carpet must look really pretty.

I was really happy the Ventergreens have regenerated safely. I bought these plants from Yasuhiko Shimada back when I was living and studying in Japan and they were pretty expensive. I just had to have them. The color is amazing! Also, how come this Japanese cultivar isn't called " matcha "?! I think the green tee powder describes the light-green color perfectly.

Even after years growing these plants you still can't figure them out sometimes. I've had two dorotheae C300 specimens looking very similar in their size and overall health. One has regenerated in an exemplary manner and has doubled in size since. Perfect, fat and healthy looking plant! Beautiful markings, too. Meanwhile the other tried to grow two heads, then regenerated with only one head again and obviously failed to grow roots while doing so. Now it's refusing to drink and is slowly dying. Same pot, same conditions, same everything - different outcome. Go figure! The other three-headed and large-windowed dorotheae is doing fine. I normally remove remains of the flower but this plant flowers from only one head every year and I'd like to know if it's the same one. :)

Titanopsis hugo-schlechteri is new on my windowsill. Yes, I'm going through Aloinopsis and Titanopsis, they are just too pretty on pictures online. Looking forward to watching this one grow. I think the leaves might have grown too long but these things correct themselves quickly. The leaf surface is very promising and the color should get more intense with some sun. PS: Sown some Frithia and Aloinopsis two days ago. 3rd try with A. malherbei: the seeds just don't germinate, hm...

It's such a wonderful plant. It grows leaves all the time keeping me at ease (I always get worried when there hasn't been any growth for a while). I really love the texture of its juicy leaves, so velvety soft to the touch. Underground it has nice thick roots which I hope to display one day. It might take several years though. The plant was trying to flower last year but didn't make it (a problem I also had with lithops). Maybe this year? About the flowers, I've started using valerian flower extract lately that should support flower buds (among other things). It does smell but not more than the medical valerian extract (with alcohol) so it's safe for indoors if you keep the bottle open just as long as needed. We'll see if it's good when the flowering season comes.

I've been reporting on these Frithia humilis seedlings since they first hatched in June 2012 (scroll down here for all the cute baby pics). I still have all nine of them so that I must be doing it right. However they do confuse me with sudden change from time to time: They react very quickly to sun, heat and water. When the sun is really intense they're all like Oh no! This is the end! Goodbye cruel world! and the next morning Sorry, false alarm, we're all fine, thanks for the water btw . Since the humilis species has small leaves and the plants are petit all in all I've been keeping track of the seedling's developent through counting the leaves. For a long while there was an average of 7 leaves (new grow, old dry up without an increase in number), now the biggest of them has 13. I so hope to see flowers next year. Now that it's finally hot and sunny I've added some more pumice to the pot to allow them to retreat if needed. Not sure if it's a good ide...

While most of the lithops have finally regenerated and started growing I still have several that don't make much progress. They seem to be stuck at some stage and won't go forward with it. I'm generally bad with julii so no surprise there. The only julii I was able to keep alive for several years now is this brunnea. The others - no idea what they're planing. At least summer is finally here. Hopefully it will make them use up their accumulated resources soon.

Just a quick update. :)

It is the third sunny day in a row. Even though the wind outside is pretty cold the plants inside only notice the long awaited sun. Most of my bigger fulvi greenies have turned two-headed this year and are doing well so far. They were acting up last year with a flower in June and regeneration staring in July . I'm curious how they'll do this year. The smaller ones are currently sharing their pot with two interesting greenies I've discovered in a local flower shop some time ago. They should be either julii or salicola greenies. I can't tell them apart so maybe you can. ;) Also, here is that early leaf-changer I was talking about last year wondering how it'll work out. This is how: It regenerated fine into two heads and then one of the heads regenerated into something ugly. I'll keep you updated on this plant with a weird sense of time.

My new plants have arrived! Well, really new are only two, one of which is this Nananthus. I'm still trying to get familiar with more non-lithops mesembs, you know. Not a surprise but still a great sight were the wonderfully thick roots. I read that with the caudiciform mesembs the roots only grow larger when they're underground but I couldn't bring myself to bury them completely (a mistake?). While my Aloinopsis rubrolineata is completely buried (no idea if it helps), Avonia quinaria plants (not a mesemb) are above ground and don't get much bigger as far as I can tell. Maybe I should bury them all for now.   I heard that caudiciforms are grown underground untill they're large enough to be displayed as such...