It’s true that as you open the door to pursue a hobby or learn a new activity, suddenly you are more likely to hear and know more about things that you wouldn’t otherwise.
I have recently leaped into the world of growing herbs and microgreens in my kitchen. This window-sill indoor garden thought occurred to me after we renewed our lease to the current house for two more years, and I was keen to redecorate the home to snap out of my boredom.
As all I talked about were the plants in my house and on my mind, I consciously attracted more information as the people, in turn, willingly shared their wisdom. And suddenly I became wiser and a bigger show-off than before.
And that’s also how Lithops came into my life. I shared a picture of my mung-bean micro greens on WhatsApp status one day, and a colleague with similar interests I never bonded with before, came into my life uninvited.
She was quite a professional at work and we never got to talk about anything other than work in our day-to-day meetings. This one picture brought a personal side to our relation and she informed of the esteemed plant community in Singapore where members exchanged seedlings and propagated plants for a trade-in or a much lower price than the traditional nursery. In the conversation that ensued, she said she would surprise me if I shared my address. I expected her to pleasantly drop by one day, bringing a plant-gift (naturally). However, after about a week, I received these peculiar, colorful of- course, uncomprehending (for the lack of a better word) stone-faced things.
After blinking in confusion for more than a few seconds, I finally could correlate this unannounced package to the new friend I made.
I messaged her that day to to make sense on why would anyone send this as a surprise. After learning about her disbelief when she first got to know about these live plants, we bonded on how full of wonder the world around us is.
Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae, originating from southern Africa.
I already have a tray of succulent Cacti in my collection.
The picture although shows five varieties of Cacti, two of them have withered with time and I now only have about three to four species of cacti surviving under my care.
I decided to repot all of them with my new addition of Lithops to uniformly space all my succulents and grow them as one family.
Succulents need well-drained soil- a combination of soil, perlite and pebbles.
Lithops are soft to touch and come in almost every color and size. Mine happened to be smaller than few centimeters, and by all means, I adore them. When I first potted them, I expected them to remain latent, for it seemed quite strange for anything else to happen with them.
But things change, don’t they?
I gathered more information on Lithops to educate myself with the care tips and understood that they undergo a life cycle of sorts.
Care Guide
For starters, Lithops are full of moisture. They have lesser water needs than their cousins from the succulent family. But during the initial potting, it is recommended you water them sparingly for the first one or two weeks and then leave them to sustain on their own accord with infrequent such as biweekly or monthly care.
Besides water, the fascinating thing that caught my attention is that they undergo a process called Molting. The sound of the word Molting threw me off to think it’s a bad thing. But it’s not.
In biology, moulting , or molting , also known as sloughing, shedding is the manner in which an animal or plant routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer layer or covering), either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in its life cycle.
The outer layer molts, giving birth or exposing an inner Lithop. The outer Lithop shrivels and dries-off, just like how a giant octopus gives its life to care for its offspring. This process sustains the inner Lithop by drawing the juices it needs to grow bigger. During this, it’s best one doesn’t add additional water and leave them to their process in peace.
So with zero expectations of my Lithops ever growing, one could find my genuine astonishment when I noticed my yellow Lithop molting in a matter of two month’s time.
It was all I spoke about for the next few days. Now, who wouldn’t?
