When you’re growing a plant that is a seasonal grower – one that only produces new growth once a year – it can be extremely hard to figure out how to correct weird growth that is less than “perfect”. In Lithops, this is most often etiolation, but can include sun scorch or physical damage as well.
When you see damage on a cactus or succulent, you know you have months of their growing season to encourage new growth. They’ll produce new leaves, they’ll grow in size, there’s plenty of visible signs that the plant is doing well and can grow out the damage. But…in Lithops, they only produce new leaves and thus new growth once in a year. Does that mean it’s impossible to correct it when your plant stretches, or when there’s damage to a plant?
Nope!
I’ve been working on this particular post for several months: last year, I had several plants looking etiolated as they went into summer dormancy, and then at the end of summer, a mouse decided many of my plants would make a tasty snack. So…all through fall and winter, and now into spring, I’ve been taking pictures and documenting the new growth of the plants and the steps I took to try and correct problematic growth.
Etiolated Lithops
The worst examples of etiolation were several of my Lithops karasmontana, which kept stretching despite any of my best efforts. This also happened with several of my Lithops salicola, which appears to be a common theme – when they get plentiful water and food, they stretch.
You can spot etiolation in Lithops when the side of the plant body is tall and distinctly visible, like the plant at right and the one faintly visible in the background.
Causes:
- Not enough light
- Too much water
- Too rich of soil (too high of an organic to inorganic ratio)
- Too much fertilizer
- The species is just prone to doing that
Lithops karasmontana ssp. Bella
Mid November, 2024
In the case of Lithops karasmontana, I’ve read in my books and learned from talking with other growers that they are simply prone to stretching in cultivation. This doesn’t mean that they always stretch, nor does it mean that you should just ignore it if they do. I’ve had a few dozen growing for the last couple years, and what I’ve observed is that they need light and water conditions to be intense to keep them compact and low in the pot.
What I mean by ‘intense’ is that the Lithops karasmontana that grow the best for me, low to the soil line and with compact heads, is very little water and almost full sun. My greenhouse Lithops of the karasmontana complex have all shown a tendency to stretch easily if I’m not careful. Meanwhile, the inventory plants kept fully outdoors, little to no shade, stay compact – up until we start getting winter rain, when they promptly begin getting taller.
One of my greenhouse grown Lithops karasmontana ssp. bella showing the stretch, March 24, 2025. Despite my efforts to keep them compact and short, these stretched right up.
My Lithops karasmontana “Red Top”, November 11 2025. You can see the longer leaf bodies, though in a clump like this it’s less unsightly than a single head. As this plant grows, however, the stretching will make it hard for new leaf bodies to divide and thrive.
Some of my seedling Lithops karasmontana showing significant stretching from being too shaded. While being at the back of the shelves and more shaded didn’t have an impact on other species (my Lithops lesliei haven’t seemed to mind at all), this species very much minded.
Seedlings from the same batch, same age, on the exact same day – but kept at the front of the exact same shelves, instead of the shady back. The difference in growth is clear!
How do you fix Lithops etiolation?
Slowly, and with intentional neglect.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, Lithops only grow once a year. Once the new leaves have grown in and stretched, you’re stuck with managing them in that state until they divide and produce new leaves the next year.
If it’s the dormant season (summer), then you manage it with minimal water, and watching your plants closely. Stretched Lithops require more water to keep them from losing their roots, rotting, or otherwise succumbing to summer stress. You also need to mitigate the cause of the stretching: if it’s from too much shade (like my karasmontana), you should slowly move them to somewhere with more light. Be careful moving them to more sun exposure too quickly; the tall sides will sunburn easily. My stretched karasmontana needed to stay in partial shade until the following growing season.
For the summer months, you wait. Water when the plant looks wrinkled and pruny, but not before. Let them suffer a bit. You may see the leaf bodies shrink down into the soil bit by bit – that’s an excellent sign! You’re very unlikely to see them truly shrink down to soil level or below, but if they do seem to get shorter, that’s a good indication you’re making them suffer correctly.
The next fall, when they start to wake up, is when you’ll need to be the most cautious about your care.
If you’ve been debating when to move the plants to more sunlight, this is the time. As new growth emerges, it’ll need the intense sunlight to maintain the compact growth. If it sunburns, it’s ready and waiting to produce new leaf bodies anyway.
The process for corrective care once they get going is the same as the mechnically damaged care, so I’ll go through that step by step after showing mechnical damage.
Damage to Lithops
There isn’t much that’s as upsetting as going out to your plants to find that a mouse or rat has been cheerfully chomping away at them.
Last fall, a single mouse would come into my greenhouse every night for almost a week, taking chomps out of many of my lithops, my conophytum, and even some of my cacti.
In the photo at left, you can see that one of the Lithops lesliei cv. “Albinica” that I’d held back for my own collection was nearly half eaten! You can also spot an otzenia that’s quite stretched below it, also with a hint of chew marks.
Short of putting your plants in a cage, there’s no cure for a mouse that’s discovered it likes the taste of your collection.
A word on rodents
Plants and rodents are not friends. No matter where you are, there’s probably a rodent that could be problematic for your cactus and succulent collection: mice, rats, gophers, squirrels, bunnies… they’re all threats.
You can guard against bunnies by keeping your plants up off the ground, putting a cage around them, or having them in a secure greenhouse. Similar tactics can deter ground squirrels, but they and their tree-climbing brethren are capable of climbing benches if they’re determined.
I’ve found my greenhouse to be the best security against the majority of pests, although it’s not 100% secure against mice, rats, or birds. I’ve noticed that it’s uncommon for me to experience mice and rats in the greenhouse – but when one does come in, like it did last fall, it realizes there’s an easy meal and returns repeatedly. The only cure was to trap it.
I initially tried a bait block (you can see green grumbs next to the Lithops above), which gave the mouse something to eat besides my plants – but for some reason, the mouse was entirely unaffected. It also kept escaping snap traps, and in the end I resorted to a sticky trap and a fast end when I found it.
I’ve had rats chew up my plants outdoors, but I can often catch those within a couple days with a well-placed and well-baited snap trap. I always bring those indoors or take them off of shelves first thing in the morning to prevent catching birds – scrub jays are very fond of stashing acorns in my pots.
Birds, Reptiles, and Plants
Whenever possible, I avoid the use of sticky traps or placing snap traps where non-rodents may venture. I would place the sticky trap in my greenhouse at night, near where I suspected the mouse was entering (it was coming in through the hole for the wires to the solar panel that powers my fan), and go out first thing in the morning to pick it back up.
No sticky traps or snap traps on the ground, even in the greenhouse, as I know I regularly get lizards that visit.
To guard against birds getting into the greenhouse, we put up hardware cloth on gaps left for ventilation or for wiring – unfortunately, not small enough of a gap to prevent all rodents, but it does prevent birds from coming in. I also drape shade cloth over the doorways, so I can leave the doors open for ventilation but still keep birds and bugs out.
Outdoors, I find I have very few issues with birds that persist for more than one raid on plants – others in the county have mentioned birds being a major issue, but I seldom get damage. I do leave seed for them, and have a water fountain running, so the answer may just be bribery to leave your collection alone.
I don’t sweat snakes, lizards, newts, or frogs that I find regularly. It makes me happy to see them, actually, these types of plants thrive in the same condition our native reptiles do!
Rodent Damage
Growing out rodent damage isn’t impossible, and even severe damage can still be recoverable.
More bites taken out of Lithops – the mouse would go through and just take a bit or two out of a plant at a time, like it was sampling them all.
It was starting to eat cactus fruits next, and I was very worried about it going for more of my conophytum and seedlings on another bench.
I can’t even begin to express my level of frustration and rage when I came out one morning to find my monstrose Lithops aucampiae ssp. aucampaie var. aucampiae heavily damaged. I’d been babying that seedling for quite a while.
At left is the Lithops before the damage.
How do you nurture your lithops to healthy growth after damage?
The guidance to help your plant bounce back is the same for rodent damage as sunburn.
In the fall, water like normal. Encourage the Lithops to plump up and build energy. The energy they produce in the beginning of the season will help them produce new plant bodies, and hopefully recover into beautiful, perfect new growth.
Plants too young, small, or damaged to bloom will seem like they’re taking forever to do anything.
The little Lithops julii ssp. fulleri at right plumped up for fall, grew a little, and then seemed to do absolutely nothing all fall and most of winter.
The photo at right is from the first week of January, 2025. The earlier photo, above, next to the albinica – that’s from November of 2024, when the damage first occurred.
If the two images look pretty darn similar, it’s because seemingly nothing was happening! But below the soil, the Lithops was extending roots, growing energy in the plant body, and preparing to produce new leaves.
A month later, by the first week of February, the Lithops had finally started to split and show new leaves.
This is the stage when you don’t want to water the plants unless you absolutely have to: they need to absorb moisture and energy from the old leaf bodies to maintain compact growth.
It’s worth noting that the Lithops julii ssp. fulleri is in the same part of my greenhouse as the Lithops karasmontana ssp. bella are, and as you can see – not stretched. These handled partial shade and a little extra water much better than the karasmontana.
End of February, 2025 – some continued splitting, but taking its sweet time to finish dividing.
At this point, I’d added Osmocote as the once-a-year fertilizer to give my mesembs one more boost before summer dormancy. I was experimenting with adding it before the plants finish dividing, to try and encourage larger plant body size as they split.
End of March, 2025 – at the final stages of division.
I watered the Lithops twice during the three months of them dividing: a sprinkle in mid-January for the few that were very wrinkled, another sprinkle in February for all of them, and then a deep thorough watering in March when we had some warm weather.
Time will tell if my Osmocote addition was a good idea for the final growth at the end of the season, but so far it doesn’t seem to be hurting.
My hope is the extra “food” before they go dormant helps more of them bloom next growing season in addition to putting on some size. Watering while the Lithops were dividing was also a calculated decision: compared to being fully outdoors or in a shade house, rather than a greenhouse, my plants get quite warm. I was noticing the new leaf bodies wrinkling in addition to the outer leaves, and made sure the plants weren’t simply going to wither away.
My Lithops lesliei ssp. lesliei var. lesliei cv. “Albinica” (no, I’m not typing that all out again) was pretty severely damaged, and I’ll admit I wasn’t sure this one would make it.
Once the chew damage scarred over, I repotted it into my little octagon pot to keep it for the next few years.
Like the julii, it didn’t seem to do much all fall – just plumped up and sat there. This photo is from the first week of January 2025.
Beginning of February, 2025 – I can see new leaf bodies in there!
End of February, 2025. See how the old leaf bodies have turned yellow and are shriveling back?
The scarred bottom edge of the old leaves has split and stretched, and by this point it sure looked like the new leaves were coming in perfect and round.
A couple weeks later! These were the lithops I gave a little extra sprinkle to. With the old leaf bodies shriveling up and turning papery, my hope was to fuel the new leaf bodies enough to gain more size.
First week of April! Perfect and the old leaves are fully absorbed. No sign of damage, and the new leaf bodies are nice and compact, close to the top of the soil.
I will admit to being too upset over my Lithops aucampiae to take photos while it began dividing – so what we have now is the end result.
Whomp whomp, it’s no longer monstrose.
With Lithops and with Conophytum, leaf abnormalities such as variegation, three lobes, or monstrose growth are all not guaranteed from year to year. With the development of new leaves each season, it’s a roll of the dice if the plant will repeat the same growth as the year before.
Correcting Unsightly Growth
To fix damage or etiolation, the recommendation is the same: once your Lithops begin to split, you withold water almost entirely.
Make sure they’re somewhere nice and bright and watch them closely. If you notice some stretching starting with the new leaves as they emerge, move things around to prevent it from getting worse.
You’ll see that my watering and fertilizer in February led to these Lithops bromfieldii starting to stretch, even though they were in what I thought was a strong sun exposure.
To confirm that they were getting as much sun as I suspected they needed, I went up to the greenhouse to doublecheck light and shadows. In winter, there’s palm trees that shade the front half of the greenhouse in the afternoon – had they grown enough to reach the back, too?
Nope.
It’s a shadow from some taller pots and plants in the column these are placed. I rearranged the bench, and that seems to have halted the stretch to around this level.
And here they are, mid April 2025.
You can see they’ve fully absorbed their old leaf bodies, but are still a bit stretched.
This level of stretch isn’t ideal in my opinion, but isn’t so bad that they won’t shrink back into their pots as summer approaches and they use up their energy reserves.
Notice the color change compared to the photo above, too! With the increase in daylight hours and continued reduced water, the new leaf bodies are a rich color with textured tops. The color of Lithops at the end of their growing season is usually their best and brightest, and it’s a great time to sit and stare at your collection.
I hope you found this post helpful, and it gives you something to compare your own plants against if you’re worried about how they’ve grown in. It also hopefully shows you just how long it takes for lithops to regrow in a season!
I mentioned my inventory plants in this post, and showed some seedlings that were part of my sales inventory being in less than great condition. I did want to mention that I only list and ship out plants that are in a condition I’d want to receive them in! Those etiolated Lithops karasmontana were not included in inventory counts until this spring, when they had divided and looked more “proper”. Interestingly, several of those stretched lithops divided into multiple heads, or even bloomed!
So don’t lose hope if your Lithops don’t grow quite the way you wanted them to! With patience and adjustments to lighting and water, you can encourage their next growth to behave better.
