Thank you for this video. Ive watched hundreds of lithop care videos. Im a lithop beginner. This is most informational for someone like me who was looking for step by step directions. Ive already killed 9/10 and bought 10 more 🤣 Ive learned a lot despite killing them. Plz continue these videos for newbies like me. Greetings from Sacramento, Ca!
Well you're very welcome for this video! I'm not a lithops beginner, but I've also watched all those videos. After that, I become friends with people like Steven Hammer, and studied the ways of the masters, and learned just how bad some the the stuff out there is. I say take grains of salt with all info, even mine, because growing anything is a local climate type of deal, but as an IT guy who's been in the industry for a long time, I've got a lot of practice relating technical concepts to people in direct terms. My goal is to help as many people as I can successfully make their way into this awesome rabbithole, and knowing I've helped someone else, just makes my day. For you, I will continue these videos, as well as all other newbies! Greetings, Sacramento! I once performed there, with the California State Honor Choir, in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Fantastic experience!
Hey now! I love that you love my shirt that I love!!!! Hahaha, they are indeed a band beyond description!!! You're quite welcome, thanks for watching!! 💚
You are my new guru. My paranoia concerning my lithops requires a guru. I got my first flowers this week. I am in central California and my plants live the Dead
I am here for you, my brother. I grew up in Visalia. You are my kindred. Also, Little Wing is amazing, and I'm glad you've come back to us, SRV LOL!!!.
I've seen you around on a few of the FB groups I'm in. I've admired your solid advice on the beginners groups. I'm here from your chat on Love Lithops Beginners trying to steady up my nerves to set up a batch of lithops that took a two week San Francisco vacation between the seller in Atlanta and myself in St. Louis. Needless to say, they are in pretty rough shape. Then I saw your shirt and I knew your my kind of people. Thanks for the tips, I'm going to take the leap and hope for the best tomorrow morning.
Well is that isn't completely awesome, I don't know what is! Thank you for watching!! I will say that I've had lithops spend much longer in transit than that, and the seem to bounce back okay, so I'm optimistic for your new plants!!! Also, I love being your kind of people. Good luck, let me know how it goes!!!
Hi Aox, I’m a new subbie from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺 I’m new to lithops and found you via a recommendation in Love Lithops Beginners. I have 3 sml store bought plants I’m learning with and have bought a bunch of seeds that I’m eager to try soon. But wanted to get the substrate and growing right in these guys first. Thanks so much for the video, it was very informative and entertaining 😊
@@AoxTheGardener Today is my birthday and my order of lithops arrived! I’m working on making my mix. I’m using pumice, perlite, sand and gravel. All of it is white because that is the look I want. Any thoughts on whether or not that will be an acceptable media mix? I have some succulent/cactus soil but I’ve seen that too much (if any) organic material isn’t really great for these guys. I like your amendments you are using and will consider those. Also as a mom of 3 teen boys, I really appreciate your sweet way with your kids. Your wife and kids are lucky to have a great dad.
@@GenRN Aww, well thank you lady. I spent 10 years working at a YMCA summer camp in the Sierra Nevadas, it went a long way to shape me into the person I am today. I would skip the sand and the perlite. As a basic mix, I'd recommend 5 parts 1/4 inch pumice, 4 parts 1/8 inch pumice, and 10 percent sifted cactus/succulent soil. Definitely skip the sand and perlite, those are pretty counter to the long term health of the plants, sand moreso than perlite. Thank you for coming along for the ride!
@@AoxTheGardenerthanks for the birthday wishes! Well 4 repots later and I’m thrilled with my babies! I just posted on lithops Reddit…my 1st flower is emerging!!? All are rooting up and looking amazing!! I seriously feel like I nailed the potting up and plan to leave them in their new home for the next 20 years 😂.
Hello Aox. I really enjoyed this video, and I'll definitely be watching the rest! I'm going to be growing Lithops, Conophytum and Haworthia from seed soon. Keep up the good work!
Welcome aboard, Jeanine!! Thank you you for the sub, I love it!! Hopefully I've got some good info, and maybe a little entertainment here for you! Thanks again!
You’re freaking cool could you write up the recipe? I was reading about the cocoa and a lot weren’t using it but I like your suggestion and the way you did everything in them. I have a few Lithops and I didn’t do the cutting when I put them in and they’ve been in my pots growing still and splitting, should I take them out now and do all that I just put them straight into my DIY substrate but I like everything that you shown us and I wanted to say thank you😊 I hope I get to see a flower one day!
Well thank you so much!!! The recipe is simple, we're aiming for 90% grit, and 10% soil. I use 70% pumice (1/4 and 1/8 inch), and 20% calcined clay (1/8 inch), and 10 percent cococoir, or succulent soil, or even potting soil. It's such a small amount, and we're just aiming to fill some voids in the grit. If you didn't do the cutting, and they were not bare root and dried out, they should be okay. Even without the cutting, if they are fresher plants, they have a good chance of taking off. The trimming of the roots is for dried out plants that have been out of soil for a while, like you would receiving from a shipment online! Always water after repotting, but if the plants are doing okay, then I wouldn't worry about trimming!! Good luck with your plants, and thank you again for watching! Keep at it, and you'll see that flower!! 💚
Aox, your advice has helped me grow healthy lithops and I share your video anytime someone is asking how to pot them up. Question though, how far back can roots be trimmed before there is no hope? I’ve gotten some that were trimmed before I got them and are suuuper short. Still not rooted after months.
Hello Aox, I'm new and I don't speak much English! I already followed your steps and cut the roots until I saw the white, but I have a doubt, should they be in the refrigerator for a whole week without seeing the sun, or just at night? Thanks
Ahh, welcome to a very fascinating rabbithole, Robin!!! I hope you have great success with them as well! I get my plants from anywhere that has nice plants! For lithops, I highly recommend Yongquan Lithops (quality) and KongerGarden (price), both on Etsy. Yongquan has regular ebay auctions as well. I'm fortunate to get most of my personal lithops directly from other growers.
What happens if you got bare root lithops (tiny ones) and didn’t soak them or trim them back to white pith, and most are now splitting? Should I wait to clip them, put them in moist substrate?? I’m so confused
Hi! Love the video! I have a question. I have the bare roots down (after your video, thank you.) I got some lithops from a big box store, yes, I know I shouldn’t have, but I had to rescue it. And they were bone dry. So I brought him home and got off as much of the soil as I could without damaging any roots, and then I rinsed it underwater, put it on a paper towel, and dried it out. I left all the roots on it and I planted them that way. Is that gonna be OK or should I get them up and trim everything off?
Hey, I have more than one big box rescue in my collection!! They are wonderful for learning and experimenting, and once you get the cycle down on those, you can move onto the more beautiful, rare, and special (re: MORE EXPENSIVE) ones! I think those will be fine, since they were in soil, they were likely sheltered from completely drying out, so I think you may be okay with those! As long as you watered when you replanted, I think you're going to be fine! Thank you for watching!!
You told me to use a mixer of calcined clay, pumice and and cactus mix potting soil. I know you're only supposed to use about 10% of that the soil mix the rest should be the other two. What I need to know is do I mix equal amounts of the calcined clay and pumice or should there be more of one than the other?
I have, and you know it did NOT go well. I made a couple critical mistakes (left the seedling pots in a tray of water, and didn't remove the humidity dome soon enough), that slayed all the mesembs I was attempting at the time. I've since grown conophytum and echeveria from seed quite successfully, so it's time for round two. I'll be sowing another batch of mesembs next week with Mesa Garden's and my own lithops seed, so stay tuned for that adventure!
@@AoxTheGardener Sorry to hear that! And thank you so much for the tip. I'm from Winnipeg, Canada and our winter's temp is around -30 to -45C (-31 to -49F), not sure if my lithops will survive! lol Probably, grow lights? Anyway, looking forward to your new adventure! Have a lovely day!
Thank you so much, Alfredo! I'm lucky to live in a Mediterranean climate, in Southern California. Our weather is typically sunny and warm, with quite a bit of humidity at times. I'm about 10 miles from the coast. This winter it has been VERY wet, and I lost about 10 individuals to the weather, mostly optica rubras in patio pot that I forgot about and got hit hard by the rain. The 100 percent inorganic has ended up working very well for me. The mix is important though, you've got to have enough variation in grit size and a touch of fines. I believe would have much less success in pots full of 1/4 inch pumice or say, straight bonsaijack.
Search "Japanese metal sieve" on Amazon, I got it from there! It's got the base, and three screens, 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch, and a fine screen. I've used it so bloody much!
Nice video! Came from the subreddit succulenteers 🎉 is it detrimental to not trim the dry roots on a lithops? I planted mine up last week and I didn’t know I should be trimming them back 😅
NICE!! Thanks man, good to see ya here!! I wouldn't say it's detrimental, as they may still root up and take off, but I've had enough non-trimmed fail when I was getting into these guys, that I ALWAYS trim them now. So, there's a decent possibility they could be fine, especially if they weren't out of soil for long, but if they were dried up and took a while to get shipped, they may struggle for a while till they get going. When I was learning, I had lithops that didn't get happy for MONTHS, that I would just stick in the substrate however they came. Now, it's VERY rare that I don't get even dried out struggling plants rooted up and plumping out by the end of a week's time.
Unfortunately, not so well, I lost a lot of heads on that plant to sunburn. Went on a trip, and came back to massive damage and my sunshade not shading! Big oof!
Thank you for this video. Ive watched hundreds of lithop care videos. Im a lithop beginner. This is most informational for someone like me who was looking for step by step directions. Ive already killed 9/10 and bought 10 more 🤣 Ive learned a lot despite killing them. Plz continue these videos for newbies like me. Greetings from Sacramento, Ca!
Well you're very welcome for this video! I'm not a lithops beginner, but I've also watched all those videos. After that, I become friends with people like Steven Hammer, and studied the ways of the masters, and learned just how bad some the the stuff out there is. I say take grains of salt with all info, even mine, because growing anything is a local climate type of deal, but as an IT guy who's been in the industry for a long time, I've got a lot of practice relating technical concepts to people in direct terms. My goal is to help as many people as I can successfully make their way into this awesome rabbithole, and knowing I've helped someone else, just makes my day. For you, I will continue these videos, as well as all other newbies! Greetings, Sacramento! I once performed there, with the California State Honor Choir, in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Fantastic experience!
Thank you for all of your help
You're welcome, lady :)
The Bob Ross of Lithops🤘🏼
Best compliment EVER!!!!! THANK YOU!!!
So glad i found your channel..love your humor..❤❤❤ im just getting into lithops..thanks for the video...
You're so welcome!!!
First of all, totally love your shirt ❤️⚡️💙 and your fav band! thanks for the info 🎶
Hey now! I love that you love my shirt that I love!!!! Hahaha, they are indeed a band beyond description!!! You're quite welcome, thanks for watching!! 💚
You are my new guru. My paranoia concerning my lithops requires a guru. I got my first flowers this week. I am in central California and my plants live the Dead
I am here for you, my brother. I grew up in Visalia. You are my kindred. Also, Little Wing is amazing, and I'm glad you've come back to us, SRV LOL!!!.
Great vid. After killing off a couple some years ago, you just got me all excited about getting it done right.
Thanks!! I’m glad you found something helpful in this one!
I've seen you around on a few of the FB groups I'm in. I've admired your solid advice on the beginners groups. I'm here from your chat on Love Lithops Beginners trying to steady up my nerves to set up a batch of lithops that took a two week San Francisco vacation between the seller in Atlanta and myself in St. Louis. Needless to say, they are in pretty rough shape. Then I saw your shirt and I knew your my kind of people. Thanks for the tips, I'm going to take the leap and hope for the best tomorrow morning.
Well is that isn't completely awesome, I don't know what is! Thank you for watching!! I will say that I've had lithops spend much longer in transit than that, and the seem to bounce back okay, so I'm optimistic for your new plants!!! Also, I love being your kind of people. Good luck, let me know how it goes!!!
Just stumbled onto this video. So enjoyed it. Fun and informative. The Dad portion, however was my favorite.
t
Haha, that Dad portion is a classic, right?!? I've been working on my Dad portion of the channel! :D
Hi Aox, I’m a new subbie from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺
I’m new to lithops and found you via a recommendation in Love Lithops Beginners.
I have 3 sml store bought plants I’m learning with and have bought a bunch of seeds that I’m eager to try soon. But wanted to get the substrate and growing right in these guys first.
Thanks so much for the video, it was very informative and entertaining 😊
Thanks for subbing! You ROCK!!! You know, I love having Aussies join in, I learned a lot of my beginner knowledge from James at Succulents Australia.
@@AoxTheGardenerwell I’m so happy to be here and join in 🙌 oh same here.. I watched the segments Johnny A did with him here on UA-cam.
Monbulk is approx 30-40min drive from where I am too.. it’s on my wish list to visit Succulents Australia. Hopefully soon 🙏
Loved your information .. I'm a Newbie of Lithops.. thanks heaps you explained a lot
Glad it was helpful! I love hearing that I've helped another!!! Good luck with the plantos!!!!
I'm from Australia.. thanks for spot on Information!
Glad to help!
Fantastic video. Thank you so much.
Glad you enjoyed it! Absolutely my pleasure, and thank you for watching!
@@AoxTheGardener Today is my birthday and my order of lithops arrived! I’m working on making my mix. I’m using pumice, perlite, sand and gravel. All of it is white because that is the look I want. Any thoughts on whether or not that will be an acceptable media mix? I have some succulent/cactus soil but I’ve seen that too much (if any) organic material isn’t really great for these guys. I like your amendments you are using and will consider those.
Also as a mom of 3 teen boys, I really appreciate your sweet way with your kids. Your wife and kids are lucky to have a great dad.
@@GenRN Aww, well thank you lady. I spent 10 years working at a YMCA summer camp in the Sierra Nevadas, it went a long way to shape me into the person I am today. I would skip the sand and the perlite. As a basic mix, I'd recommend 5 parts 1/4 inch pumice, 4 parts 1/8 inch pumice, and 10 percent sifted cactus/succulent soil. Definitely skip the sand and perlite, those are pretty counter to the long term health of the plants, sand moreso than perlite. Thank you for coming along for the ride!
@@GenRN Also, happy freakin BIRTHDAY!!!! Woo hoo!!!! 💥💥
@@AoxTheGardenerthanks for the birthday wishes! Well 4 repots later and I’m thrilled with my babies! I just posted on lithops Reddit…my 1st flower is emerging!!? All are rooting up and looking amazing!! I seriously feel like I nailed the potting up and plan to leave them in their new home for the next 20 years 😂.
Thank you for your details.
My pleasure, lady!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Coming from fb group. Great video!
Awesome, thank you so much!!!
Hello Aox. I really enjoyed this video, and I'll definitely be watching the rest! I'm going to be growing Lithops, Conophytum and Haworthia from seed soon. Keep up the good work!
Hah!! That's AWESOME, good luck with all the grows, and THANK YOU!!
Hi, new sub here from Australia. Love Lithops and just starting to get a little collection growing.
Welcome aboard, Jeanine!! Thank you you for the sub, I love it!! Hopefully I've got some good info, and maybe a little entertainment here for you! Thanks again!
예쁜 돌맹이갇은 리톱이들 예쁘게 잘 심어주셨네요
수고 하셨습니다 영상 즐감하고 엄지척 함니다 ^^
제 영상을 봐주셔서 정말 감사합니다! 당신의 친절한 말에 감사드립니다.
You’re freaking cool
could you write up the recipe? I was reading about the cocoa and a lot weren’t using it but I like your suggestion and the way you did everything in them.
I have a few Lithops and I didn’t do the cutting when I put them in and they’ve been in my pots growing still and splitting, should I take them out now and do all that I just put them straight into my DIY substrate but I like everything that you shown us and I wanted to say thank you😊 I hope I get to see a flower one day!
Well thank you so much!!! The recipe is simple, we're aiming for 90% grit, and 10% soil. I use 70% pumice (1/4 and 1/8 inch), and 20% calcined clay (1/8 inch), and 10 percent cococoir, or succulent soil, or even potting soil. It's such a small amount, and we're just aiming to fill some voids in the grit. If you didn't do the cutting, and they were not bare root and dried out, they should be okay. Even without the cutting, if they are fresher plants, they have a good chance of taking off. The trimming of the roots is for dried out plants that have been out of soil for a while, like you would receiving from a shipment online! Always water after repotting, but if the plants are doing okay, then I wouldn't worry about trimming!! Good luck with your plants, and thank you again for watching! Keep at it, and you'll see that flower!! 💚
@@AoxTheGardener thank you so much for your great advice🙂 keep up the great vids.
@@debbie2009 I need to get off my butt and do it, that's for sure!! I've got three ideas percolating and all the motivation of a lithops in August!
❤😊🎉
Woohoo🎉
Aox, your advice has helped me grow healthy lithops and I share your video anytime someone is asking how to pot them up. Question though, how far back can roots be trimmed before there is no hope? I’ve gotten some that were trimmed before I got them and are suuuper short. Still not rooted after months.
I've taken them back to almost nothing, as long as you haven't removed the entirely of the root meristem, you should be okay, but be careful for sure!
Hello Aox, I'm new and I don't speak much English! I already followed your steps and cut the roots until I saw the white, but I have a doubt, should they be in the refrigerator for a whole week without seeing the sun, or just at night? Thanks
I'm new to the succlent world! The video is great information. I hope that I have great success with them. Where do youu get your plants from?
Ahh, welcome to a very fascinating rabbithole, Robin!!! I hope you have great success with them as well! I get my plants from anywhere that has nice plants! For lithops, I highly recommend Yongquan Lithops (quality) and KongerGarden (price), both on Etsy. Yongquan has regular ebay auctions as well. I'm fortunate to get most of my personal lithops directly from other growers.
Hi new to your channel, from philadelphia. I didn't prep my lithops cutting the roots should I unpot them,abd redo....
What happens if you got bare root lithops (tiny ones) and didn’t soak them or trim them back to white pith, and most are now splitting? Should I wait to clip them, put them in moist substrate?? I’m so confused
Hey what was that fairy dust?
Bonemeal!
Hi! Love the video! I have a question. I have the bare roots down (after your video, thank you.) I got some lithops from a big box store, yes, I know I shouldn’t have, but I had to rescue it. And they were bone dry. So I brought him home and got off as much of the soil as I could without damaging any roots, and then I rinsed it underwater, put it on a paper towel, and dried it out. I left all the roots on it and I planted them that way. Is that gonna be OK or should I get them up and trim everything off?
Hey, I have more than one big box rescue in my collection!! They are wonderful for learning and experimenting, and once you get the cycle down on those, you can move onto the more beautiful, rare, and special (re: MORE EXPENSIVE) ones! I think those will be fine, since they were in soil, they were likely sheltered from completely drying out, so I think you may be okay with those! As long as you watered when you replanted, I think you're going to be fine! Thank you for watching!!
You told me to use a mixer of calcined clay, pumice and and cactus mix potting soil. I know you're only supposed to use about 10% of that the soil mix the rest should be the other two. What I need to know is do I mix equal amounts of the calcined clay and pumice or should there be more of one than the other?
6 pumice, 3 clay, 1 soil! 👍🏻
@15:59, what is that? For root development you added a dusting of...? I can't understand what you are saying there. Thanks.
He added bone meal
Hi, have you tried sowing from seeds? Thanks!
I have, and you know it did NOT go well. I made a couple critical mistakes (left the seedling pots in a tray of water, and didn't remove the humidity dome soon enough), that slayed all the mesembs I was attempting at the time. I've since grown conophytum and echeveria from seed quite successfully, so it's time for round two. I'll be sowing another batch of mesembs next week with Mesa Garden's and my own lithops seed, so stay tuned for that adventure!
@@AoxTheGardener Sorry to hear that! And thank you so much for the tip. I'm from Winnipeg, Canada and our winter's temp is around -30 to -45C (-31 to -49F), not sure if my lithops will survive! lol Probably, grow lights? Anyway, looking forward to your new adventure! Have a lovely day!
@@mirob3947 I do believe some indoor growing will be in your future!!! LOL!!
great video, i see u use around 100% non organic substrate, how the weather is in your city ?
Thank you so much, Alfredo! I'm lucky to live in a Mediterranean climate, in Southern California. Our weather is typically sunny and warm, with quite a bit of humidity at times. I'm about 10 miles from the coast. This winter it has been VERY wet, and I lost about 10 individuals to the weather, mostly optica rubras in patio pot that I forgot about and got hit hard by the rain. The 100 percent inorganic has ended up working very well for me. The mix is important though, you've got to have enough variation in grit size and a touch of fines. I believe would have much less success in pots full of 1/4 inch pumice or say, straight bonsaijack.
@@AoxTheGardener Excellent answer, thanks for your time. I'll try to put 100% inorganic, it's also complicated for me. I have the same climate as you.
where do you buy your sifter??
Search "Japanese metal sieve" on Amazon, I got it from there! It's got the base, and three screens, 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch, and a fine screen. I've used it so bloody much!
@@AoxTheGardener thanks brotha!
Where can I purchase the mesemb substrate ……new to this line of gardening
Little emerald or something like that… they have a nice one
I always recommend LittleEmeraldThumb (Etsy) and her Mesemb Soil Mix!
Nice video! Came from the subreddit succulenteers 🎉 is it detrimental to not trim the dry roots on a lithops? I planted mine up last week and I didn’t know I should be trimming them back 😅
NICE!! Thanks man, good to see ya here!! I wouldn't say it's detrimental, as they may still root up and take off, but I've had enough non-trimmed fail when I was getting into these guys, that I ALWAYS trim them now. So, there's a decent possibility they could be fine, especially if they weren't out of soil for long, but if they were dried up and took a while to get shipped, they may struggle for a while till they get going. When I was learning, I had lithops that didn't get happy for MONTHS, that I would just stick in the substrate however they came. Now, it's VERY rare that I don't get even dried out struggling plants rooted up and plumping out by the end of a week's time.
😃
Are you still making videos?
my favourite part is at 9:05
My shirt
I saw your 17 year old julii on Reddit! How it doing?
Unfortunately, not so well, I lost a lot of heads on that plant to sunburn. Went on a trip, and came back to massive damage and my sunshade not shading! Big oof!
@@AoxTheGardener yeah it happens. Pretty sad tho 😢.
@@Cacti_Of_Mexico Yeah I took it pretty hard…