Attempts at growing Mesembs in the tropics

[mmcavall]

So I gave one step forward in Mesembs cultivation (try) and ordered a new set of seeds from MG; some species are probably more difficult than the previously sowed ones (the plants in the above posts).

I would appreciate very much any comment and tip on the new seeds that just arrived (listed below).

As I’ve experienced some problems after transplanting, so I’m thinking about sowing half of the seeds of each species in the definitive clay pots.

(In plastic pots I’ll not add loam, just grit, because I lost some plants due to humidity; however, in clay pots I think a little loam is needed…Am I right?)


What do you guys think about that? In this case, what would be the species that require deep pots due to tap roots?


Thanks a lot for any comment.

Aloinopsis:
1316-schooneesii

Antimima:
1319.48-turneriana

Argyroderma:
1322.1-delaetii
1330-delaetii 'roseum'
1333-fissum
1344.1-subalbum 'villetii'

Conophytum:
1420.49-flavum
1473.4-spp olla podrida, full mix of species

Dinteranthus:
1482.12-vanzylii
1483.1-wilmotianus

Drosanthemopsis:
1488-vaginatus Kwagganap, elk horn papillae

Faucaria:
1496.9-hooleae

Fenestraria:
1508-rhopalophylla

Lapidaria:
1540.3-margaretae

Lithops:
1634-karasmontana 'lateritia'
1644-lesliei 'Kimberley'
1774.3-mix stone plants


Ophthalmophyllum:
1810.4-sp mix windows of many colors

Pleiospilos:
1833-nelii Royal Flush

Rabiea:
1841.035

Trichodiadema:
1882-mirabile

[mmcavall]

Or, being more objective:

Lithops, Argyroderma, Dinteranthus, Aloinopsis and Fenestraria do best in shallow or deep pots?

thanks for your answer!

[mmcavall]

Mesembs transplanting
Something between 6 and 4 months has passed since I reppoted my Mesembs, so now I can show the results. I read that Mesembs can take a long time to respond to stresses such as being transplanted, so you can wait a long time until results (good or bad) appear.
My overall impression was bad, as if I was losing control, but the truth is: I lost very few plants, and I think that they are well established now, so results were satisfactory (nevertheless, I’m decided to test sowing in the definitive clay pots for the next batch).

In the plastic pots, the potting mix is pure grit.
In the clay pots, the potting mix is mainly composed by grit and gravel, but I added a little dirt: in some cases, sandy soil, in others, dried leaves or something alike.

Pictures will describe better than me:

Some of them:


Delosperma esterhuyseniae:


Pleiopilos nelli:



Pleiopilos compactus:


Pleiopilos bolusii:


Pleiospilos compactus minor


Schwantesia herrei:


Now, the clay pots:

Glottiphylum pigmaeum:



G. peersii:


Delosperma crassum:



D. esterhuyseniae:


Pleiopilos nellii:



P. bolusii:



P. compactus:




M. uniondalensis:


Cerochlamis pachyphyla:


Tanquana prismatica:


Nananthus wilmaniae:


Schwantesia loeschiana:





Schwantesia loeschiana minor:

[xerophyte]

I think you are doing remarkably well, considering that mesembs are almost entirely absent from those parts of the country with a climate similar to yours. I do not dwell on things that don't adapt to my local climate, but you seem to have much more persistence than I do. The one piece of advice I can give is to relentlessly fight red spider, aphids and any other kind of vector that can contribute to bacterial transfer. I have found that plants that operate 'marginally' in high temperature and humidity are quickly pushed over the edge if they get infected, whereas they can handle those conditions for a while provided pathogens are absent.

[mmcavall]

Thank you very much Xerophyte for your comments, it makes me more confident in what I'm doing.

And thank you very much also for the advice on red spider and other bugs. Indeed, I have experienced some problems with mites, and the more attacked (or the only attacked) ones were the mesembs.

Now an update: Monilaria really dont like living in Brazil! It survived the hot summer, but now it is winter, cool days, cold nights, good soaks, but it dont respond to that, and keep just stand still.

For the others, I decided to consistently give them a spray of water very early in the morning. They look happy, and the Nananthus is the first to show signs of strong growth.

[mmcavall]

ops, in the pictures above, the names of G. pygmeaum and G. peersii were wrongly assigned. It is the contrary.

[mmcavall]

Updating: a very light spray of water every morning is showing to be a good way to correctly water my Mesembs. They are responding very well. Even the Monilaria is growing. Marlothistella uniondalensis is growing strong and branching. Tanquana prismatica finally splited.


Pleiospilos compactus

[mmcavall]

New batch of Mesembs. Some variables are being tested:

1. Sowing in definitive pots, because I noticed that transplanting is a stressful procedure. To that, I abandoned the clear, cylindrical plastic pots which I used to sow, and choose square plastic pots and an assortment of clay pots (some are deep, some are shallow, and I tried to choose the species accordingly).

2. New sowing mixes; most important is the new (for me) approach of using loam in different proportions, some are very loamy mixes. I’ve found an infinite source of loam which is already mixed with grit and gravel: essentially it is a source of pre-prepared (by nature) sowing mix…if the plants do fine in this mix, for now on the preparing of mix will not be a problem anymore, at least for Mesembs.

So I have 4 different combinations of pots x mixes. Most of the seeds of each species were sown in the 4 combinations, but not all (for example, I did not sow Dinteranthus in loamy mix + plastic pots, because it is a dangerous combination for plants that cannot sit in damp soil for too long).

The combinations are:

A: ¼ loam, ¾ grit, in square plastic pots
B: ½ loam, ½ grit, in square plastic pots
C: the soil as it was collected in the source, very loamy with grit and gravel of different sizes, in clay pots
D: pure washed grit, in plastic pots

To prepare A and B, I used pure (sewed) loam and pure (washed) grit; to prepare C, I used the soil and it was collected, which seems to be a good admixture of loam and grit/gravel/peebles.

It occurred, by chance, that just after sowing the temperatures dropped down and we have one of the coldest weeks of the year (min. of 7°C, max of 24°C, mean about 17°C).

Clay pots dry out very quickly so for the first 15 days or so they are on shallow containers filled with water, to keep the humidity.

The first to sprout were Argyrodermas, Fenestraria and Pleiospilos (within 7 days). As the seeds are very tiny, I could not count how many seeds per pot I sowed. In a general manner, envelopes are supposed to have 20 seeds. No idea of how many seeds each pot received. So this time I will not take notes in terms of percentage of germination.

But overall the following species had very good germination: Faucaria tigrina, F.hooleae, Pleiospilos nelii Royal Flush, Argyroderma delaetii, A. fissum, A. subalbum, Fenestraria rhopalophylla, Lapidaria margaretae, Lithops karasmontana 'lateritia', Lithops lesliei, Lithops mix, Rabiea albipuncta.

Not so good germination, but ok:, Aloinopsis schooneesii, Ophthalmophyllum mix, Conophytum mix, Conophytum flavum, Trichodiadema mirabile, Drosanthemopsis vaginatus, Antimima turneriana

No sproutings at all: Dinteranthus vanzylii, Dinteranthus wilmotianus

Some pictures:

[mmcavall]

End of winter/ beginning of spring review
I must say that all my Mesembs grew a little during the winter, which is dry but sunny during the day and cold during the night. Some grew modestly, while others like Monilaria and Marlothistella were really active. As I reported above, spraying water every morning provided good results.

Now, the weather has changed already: nights are not cold anymore, and the days are much hotter. Monilaria is declining and I have already stopped watering it completely. Some of the other are growing, as they did during winter, like some of the Schwantesias and Cerochlamis.

However, the Pleiospilos and Schwantesia loeschiana are not holding their older leaf pair, so they are in the way to have a single leaf pair, which I think is not the ideal.

So, what to do now: may I increase waterings? Do those plants grow or take a rest during the hottest months of the year? My intuition says that I must really increase waterings, a simple spray will not work: they need to be deeply watered (as the potting mix is pure grit in plastic pots, or almost pure grit in clay pots, they will not suffer from waterlogging).

Some pictures:
Pleiospilos:




Delosperma:


Monilaria:


Marlothistella:


Nananthus:

Glottyphyllum:

[mmcavall]

When I started this thread I called it “attempts at growing Mesembs in the tropics” because I’d noticed that there are very few growers of Mesembs here in this Forum that are outside the Northern Hemisphere. I was worried about the climatic conditions here (winter days not cold enough, summer days too wet, no clear distinction among the four seasons of the year, which would impose problems to the winter and/or summer growing species).

But now, after a year and a half growing some Mesembs I’ve sowed myself, I can say that they are (surprisingly) very easy to grow here “in the tropics” (which means: in my conditions, concerning only the species I’ve tried, and until now – not the whole tropics).

The genera I’m growing were recommended by experts (except Monilaria), so I have not begun with the tricky ones. They are: Pleiospilos, Schwantesia, Cerochlamys, Malorthistella, Glottyphylum, Nananthus and Delosperma. Here are some aspects I would like to point out:

- 1. Monilaria moniliformis is the only species with remarkable dormancy (in summer). It is clearly a winter grower. I do not water it at all during summer. It survived two winters and is in its second summer (I don’t know whether it is still alive or not)

Monilaria “sleeping” or dead…have to wait until winter to know:



- 2. All other genera simply grow all year round here. I’ve never noticed any difference between summer/winter development and dormancy;

Glotiphyllum pygmaeum ready to bloom:


- 3. Watering regime (except for Monilaria) is easy. I water all the plants every day (it includes plants in plastic pots). I can skip watering for several days, but the remarkable fact here is that I can water the plants every day (of course, I do avoid watering when it is cold and humid). So I really don’t have issues about watering summer/winter growers during summer/winter days…which makes things very easy for me (this is probably quite different from growing them outside the “tropics”);
-
- 4. Even with this watering regime, the Pleiospilos have only two pairs of leaves, so they are growing correctly (not over-growing) (slightly shaded Pleiospilos in plastic pots tend to display larger leaves than those under full sun in clay pots, as expected):
Shaded Pleiospilos:



Pleiospilos bolusii (full sun):


Pleiospilos compactus (full sun):


Pleiospilos nellii (full sun):




- 5. All species are fine under full sun or under some light shade. They are tolerate strong sun with no problems;
Malorthistella (full sun):


Schwantesia loeschiana (full sun):



Delosperma esterhuyseniae (shaded):


Nananthus wilmaniae (shaded, but there is another one under full sun):


Glotiphyllum persii:




6. Potting mix seems to be crucial. For the plants in plastic pots, the mix is composed of pure grit/gravel. In the clay pots, some sand soil or leaf mold is added (provided that the mix dries out quickly, which always happens within the length of the day).
General views:



Now I’m “upgrading” to other genera that are probably more sensitive to climate and watering regimens (Lithops, Aloinopsis, Argyroderma, Conophytum, Fenestraria). I’ll submit them to the same conditions that have been working for the other genera. Hope it works.
Argyroderma subalbum seedlings:

Argyroderma delaetii seedlings:

[mmcavall]

First flower of my very first Mesemb's batch: Glottiphyllum pygmaeum (20 months after sowing).

[BRC]

Wow, great work!!

I admire your persistance, and it is paying off.

[Aiko]

I see great progress. No the long run battle will kick in.
I know I can grow and flower Pseudolithos up here, but have not been very successful keeping that up for more than five years. Somehow the weather / climate up here gets to them.

[mmcavall]

Thanks BRC and Aiko for your comments and compliments.

"Now the long battle will kick in": yes, I think so. I caught myself thinking about the next Mesemb's batches...

[mmcavall]

Almost winter now, and I decided to reduce watering for the Mesembs. I’ve sprayed all the Mesembs, even those in plastic pots, every single night until now. I have had good results with this regimen. Just because it get colder (nights below 15°C) I decided to give more time for the pots to dry out, so I’m spraying all the plants about twice a week, at night.

I’m still having Mesembs in clay and plastic pots, without any noticeable difference in plants’ health.

As for the “older” plants, Pleoispilos are getting stronger now, they are spliting and some are becoming multibranched. Delosperma esterhuyseniae and D. crassum bloomed for the first time. Monilaria moniliformis is clearly a winter lover: after 4 hot months of summer with absolutely no water (and no leaves), it recovered and is growing now.

As for the younger plants, I should say seedlings, despite loses I’ve been able to keep alive for the first time plants such as Lapidaria, Conophytum, Lithops, Argyrodermas...watering them every night.
But (maybe just because I diminished watering), some apparently get sad, but it can also be due to the cold (I mean, maybe they prefer total drought in the cold).
For example, some young Argyroderma withered, while others (even in the same pot) are splitting. I don’t know whether this withering is due to lack or excess of water...Mesembs never tell me how they feel. I keep going.

Royal Flush is so weak comparing to the common P. nellii...isn’t it?

Some pictures:

Argyroderma subalbum. Even this plant has been sprayed every night. But I never soak it, apparently this is an important tip for Argys…


One is splitting, the other is withering…can you explain that?


Another one (A. delaetii) fading away:


Argyroderma delaetii splitting:


Aloinopsis schoonesii:


Antimima turneriana:


Conophytum flavum. They can disappear at any moment, so, enjoy it!


Trichodiadema mirabilis:


Faucaria hooleae:


Lithops karasmontana: alive


Lapidaria margaretae: alive!


Royal Flush: alive, but so slow…and many died…


The tray of Mesembs seedlings. This shallow clay pot is ideal because no water stand here for too long.


Miscelaneous:


“Older” plants from my first batch:



Nananthus wilmaniae in clay pot. Look cool. Maybe it prefer to be dry in winter?


Pleiospilos splitting. Should I resume watering? Apparently they should be left alone while splitting in winter, shouldn’t they?



Monilaria moniliformis. Amazing the “resurrection” of this plant



Schwantesia loeschiana. It is suposed to be a winter grower, but apparently it grows all year round here:


Schwantesia loeschiana minor:


Carpobrutus edulis:


Delosperma esterhuyseniae:


Delosperma crassum: