This variability is part of what makes them attractive to many growers, and their robust nature, large bodies, and colorful patterns are nothing to sneeze at. The only thing stopping me from having more cultivars and subspecies in my collection is not having enough room! Maybe if I build a shade house next to the greenhouse…
Lithops lesliei ssp. lesliei var. Albinica May 2024
Cole Number: C36A
Habitat
Numerous colonies can be found throughout South Africa, with a few smaller colonies noted in Botswana. They are typically found in areas with quartzite pebbles or gneiss rocks in grassland habitats.
Gneiss Rock: Like a mix of marble and granite; has clearly visible bands or layers.
Quartzite: A hard, pale rock that looks (as you might guess) like quartz, but less clear. Can be white, gray, or pink.
In habitat, these lithops are often found near bushes, shrubs, or partially shaded by grasses. They’re often found in clustered clumps when a colony is observed, and they most often have only one or two heads (compared to the large clusters seen in cultivation). That said, some colonies seem to produce more multi-headed specimens than others, so it’s not a hard and fast rule.
Lithops lesliei Cultivation Basics
While one of the easiest species to grow, that doesn’t make it as easy to grow as, say, ice plant or your average houseplant. Like all lithops, they follow a growing cycle that takes place over an entire year, and have regular seasonal dormancies and growing patterns you need to respect.
Soil for your Lithops lesliei: Start with Climate
I am always entertained by this being something that everyone has their own opinion and mix for. Folks can get really worked up over the “correct” mix, but what that is differs based on your local climate, what you have access to, and the species you’re growing. Some are more forgiving of various mixes than others, but your local climate will have a lot to do with what is ideal for them.
I live in a northern, inland part of San Diego, where I don’t get any marine layer, and am often hotter and dryer than the more coastal parts of San Diego. I’m also more moderate in temperature compared to our more desert-like areas further south, or further inland, and it doesn’t get as cold (or as hot) as some growers I know in the more mountainous parts of our county.
Indoors entirely is its own climate; your plants would see little to no fluctuations in temperature or light, limited only by windows or your grow light settings.
A Lithops lesliei at the SDCSS summer show & sale in 2024
So what does it mean for my grow mix?
I share my climate so you can benchmark yourself against me: if you’re in a more humid area, for example, you may want to go with even more inorganic material than I do to combat the extra moisture. If it’s colder where you are, your timing for watering will likely vary. If it’s hotter and dryer because you’re in more of a desert, then you may need more organic matter in your soil. Watch your plants, and don’t be afraid to tinker!
SO: my climate is moderate, with occasional dry spells due to Santa Ana wind events. My Lithops are in my greenhouse, sheltered from extreme cold, but getting full exposure to heat. Now that it’s winter, they’re also in full sun (no shade cloth!).
With that in mind, my mix is:
- 60% pumice – or 3 parts pumice, based on my arbitrary soil scoop
- 20% orchid bark – or 1 part orchid bark, using the same scoop
- 20% cactus & succulent soil, or 1 part soil, using the same scoop
As I’ve discussed in past posts, I use orchid bark to hold on to moisture but retain the drainage my cacti and succulents need. For my lithops, the bark seems to help with root development – anecdotally, my lithops with bark in the mix have more robust root systems than the ones where I used just soil and perlite or pumice.
Which – you can also use perlite instead of pumice; I just prefer not to, as the lightweight material seems to always float up to the top.
Repotting Lithops
Ideally, you’ll want to repot your lithops as seldomly as possible. They’re slow growing, in that they only split and produce new leaves once a year, and repotting them each year (or multiple times a year) can damage their delicate roots.
I repot seedlings at two points:
1: When they are first big enough to need their own lil pots, or their germination pot is overfilled. This is usually after they’ve divided at least once, although if they manage to divide twice in their first year (yay fertilizer, more on that later) then it can happen earlier.
2: When they’re large enough to go into their own pot!
When I grow out my seedlings, I prefer to save space by having them share a pot until they reach a size that I’m comfortable selling them at. That’s usually when they’re about 2 years old, or 1″ across.
Older lithops should be repotted as seldomly as you can manage. I’m guilty of repotting every year for a couple of mine, especially as I dialed in the soil mix or wanted to switch to a different pot, but once they’re settled, try and let them have a couple years. Even better, just wait until they divide to a point that they absolutely must be repotted. Some of the best lithops growers I’ve seen (paging Steve Hammer) will leave their plants in one pot for decades.
This is why I feel it’s worth it to use pumice vs. perlite – I want my plants to stay in their soil for years and not need to be repotted.
Fertilizer for Lithops
Another fun semi-controversial stance (in as much a stance on how to grow a plant can be controversial) is whether you should fertilize your lithops.
I do fertilize them, especially as seedlings, with the explicit goal of getting them to divide at least once, preferably twice in their first year. Once they’ve reached that size, they’re generally pretty robust and can be treated like their larger counterparts.
After that, they don’t need much (or any). If yours are indoors, I’d argue to skip the fertilizer – you risk excessive growth or etiolation if you feed them too much and they don’t get enough environmental stress. When indoors, they’re already being “pampered” by the lack of heat and direct sunlight; adding fertilizer as an extra boost can end up overdoing the pampering. This means the lithops are more prone to rot, etiolation, or just “failure to thrive”.
Outdoors, there’s a couple times a year when very light fertilizer may be appreciated. I’ll feed in the fall, before my plants bloom, with a dilute, balanced fertilizer (the 20:20:20 blue stuff). After the flowers are spent, the lithops should be kept pretty dry while they divide and produce new leaves. The reason I feed before the flowers really emerge is to give the lithops a little boost for blooms, but also to have them be locked and loaded for developing new leaf bodies.
Once the division in winter is complete, and I’ve watered once or twice after the leaves have been absorbed, I’ll feed one more time. This is also to get them plump, robust, and ready to go as they head into summer dormancy. They’ll continue to grow and “bank” up energy in the late winter and early spring months before dormancy, and giving them a little extra oomph seems to help them ride out our hot summers better.
Water for your Lithops
This is one of the hardest parts of growing lithops successfully. Fortunately, Lithops lesliei is one of the most forgiving species, cheerfully accepting some overwatering without much fuss.
As with all lithops, they’re also very happy and tolerant of underwatering, too!
Fall
When the nights get cooler, you can see your lithops start to look like they’re thinking about dividing. For mine, it seems to start happening around October, once nights are in the 50s. The shorter days are a big sign for our little mesembs!
Give them a little splash, just barely enough water to see it run through the bottom, on a day when you know it’ll be warm and sunny for a couple days after (in case the lithops isn’t ready to wake up yet).
Near the end of summer and heading into fall, your Lithops lesliei should look something like the Kimberly form specimen pictured above.
They’re distinctly wrinkled, and have shrunk into their pot enough to start hiding under the top dressing of pumice I had in the pot.
This was in August of 2024, and the lithops wasn’t ready to wake up yet.
If they’re ready to wake up, that splash of water will plump them right up, and you’ll see a hint of them beginning to divide. They split a bit, ever so slightly, and you’ll see them seem to…try and grow. When you’ve seen enough of them do it, or have watched your own plants over several years, you start to get a feel or a sense for what it looks like.
Both pots of seedlings above show the plumped up, ready to start growing appearance your lithops will display before they start to bloom.
I’ve noticed that my lithops lesliei won’t bloom as early as some other species do; my lithops karasmontana (the larger seedlings) have bloomed as early as their second winter. None of my lithops lesliei have done so, despite being the same size or larger than the blooming-size karasmontana.
So – if you’re buying seedlings (like mine!) or growing them yourself, don’t be surprised if the first fall, they don’t bloom for you. That’s normal and fine. It can take up to four or five years for a lithops to be “ready” to bloom!
Winter
Don’t be shy about watering as your lithops dry out and winter wears on.
Once they’re awake (which they should be by November), they’ll accept regular watering every couple weeks if you’ve got them outdoors and it’s still relatively warm. For me, the greenhouse is still reaching 85+ on an average day, so all the plants are pretty active.
If you’re in a colder climate, or your lithops are indoors, you should water much less. Wait for signs of wrinkling, or just an extra few days when you’re sure the pot and soil are dry. At this stage, they’ll accept water even if they’re not super thirsty – it’s their growing season, and they’re happy for the water!
What you want to watch for is for the blooms to finish, and then the division to begin. When they start to split, that’s when you need to cut back on watering.
By the time it’s mid to late winter, your Lithops lesliei should be starting to split. Once the splitting starts to happening, cut back on just about all water.
The only time to water while your lithops is dividing is if you see the new leaf bodies looking wrinkled at the center. If you’re in a mild climate, have more humidity, fog, or keep your lithops indoors, you probably won’t encounter this. For me, my older lithops in their older soil will somewhat regularly need a little extra water midway through their split, or near the end.
It’s super hard to hold out with no water when they’re splitting, but it’s crucial that you do! A stacked lithops is unhealthy, and is far more likely to succumb to rot or pests. In some cases, they seem to simply…stop growing, and turn to mush.
My pair of Lithops lesliei, Kimberly form (this photo is from late November, 2022). You can see the new leaf bodies in the center, and the plump outer leaves while the new ones come in.
This is precisely when they don’t need any water! Leave them alone and the let the old leaves get absorbed.
Spring
Late winter and into spring, once the division is complete, you can start watering your lithops again whenever they’re dry.
At this stage, you’re getting them set up for summer dormancy, and they’ll appreciate the extra water to plump up. Don’t overdo it, but do water them consistently for a bit. All the energy they store up and size they build at this stage is what carries them through the summer, when they’re dormant and should be getting as little water as possible.
The photo at right is the same Lithops lesliei, Kimberly Form from the 2022 photo above, but in May of 2024. Notice how the color is different?
The increased sun exposure, some water stress, and ensuring the lithops wasn’t overwatered kept it nice and compact. If you scroll back up to look at the dividing lithops earlier, you can see a peek of the darker color of the new leaf bodies at the center!
Personally, this is one of my favorite parts about growing lithops. When you see those new, perfect leaf bodies emerging, it’s like an entirely new canvas has just appeared. It’s a sign of how well you maintained the lithops during a key part of its growth, how much light you gave it, if you got the water just right.
The plants can sometimes look like entirely different species if you tweak your cultivation conditions just right – but you have to have the patience to wait a whole year for the grow cycle!
Summer
For the summer months… less is more!
Your lithops need to be kept dry enough that you worry if they’re going to be too dry. You should be on the edge of mild concern that you haven’t watered them quite enough.
If you see them shrink significantly, and start to look concave and shriveled, that’s when you should water them. Ideally, provide the water in the evening so they have all night to absorb.
While I’ve posted in the past about how watering during the day isn’t going to scorch your plants, you do want to avoid watering your lithops midday when it’s hot out – because the hot water will cook the roots! Your little lithops won’t absorb water until the cooler evening hours, and offering water at night gives them the entire night period to absorb the water.
Pests and Problems with Lithops lesliei
So… I’ve had my fair share of pests with my lithops. While other online articles have mentioned pests like red spidermites or mealybugs, those have seldom been a problem for me. I do encounter mealybugs pretty often in other plants, but they pretty consistently avoid my lithops.
You know what I do have to deal with?
MICE.
Motherf*cking mice.
Rodents absolutely love eating lithops (and similarly soft, non-spiny cacti). And this summer, I had a super persistent mouse trying to move in to my greenhouse.
It took nearly 2 months of attempts to finally catch the mouse (sorry, those with soft hearts, there was no happy ending for the creature).
You can see some mouse damage in the lithops at right; I’ll set myself a reminder to update this article in March when it should be done dividing to show how the plant has done despite some extremely heavy damage from mouse munchies.
If you have rats (as we do at least once a year in our garage), these bait blocks will take care of them for you with minimal effort. While the bait works extremely well on rats, and you’ll have to figure out how to find them in your attic when it does (as we do), it is completely useless for mice. You may spy some green crumbs in the pot with that lithops – the mouse eating my plants would snack on the bait, then carry on eating plants right after.
A good snap trap, well-positioned, can do the trick. Make sure to position it where wild birds or lizards are unlikely to land on it!
If you don’t want to trap or kill your problematic rodents, you could prevent the issues by completely enclosing or caging your lithops instead. You’ll need to encase the lithops (and all of your plants, really) in hardware cloth to prevent rodents from easily getting in. Ensure they’re above the ground, and sitting on a solid surface that rodents can’t chew through or climb up into.
My greenhouse has hardware cloth over most of the gaps, but there’s a 1″ gap under the fan – which is where the mouse got in. Squirrels, rabbits, and other small mammals are all candidates to eat your lithops, so keep them protected from the critters!
Birds can and will happily peck, and eat, lithops – but they’re easier to manage. Offer them water, and seeds or other food options, and they generally leave your plants alone. I have not noticed birds going after my lithops if I offer a bird bath or other water source, and otherwise have native plants that are well watered through the harsh summer months. This keeps birds satisfied and provides them a source of water that isn’t my plants, and the beak damage is kept to a minimum.
Want some Lithops lesliei of your own?
I grow several cultivars and subspecies from seed! Two cultivars I particularly enjoy (and grow new batches from seed each year) are Lithops lesliei ssp. lesliei var. lesiei cv. “Albinica” and Lithops lesliei sp venteri var. “Ventergreen”.
I order my seed from a few places, but routinely receive some from an international Mesemb study group, an ethical grower in South Africa, and of course the pillar of US mesembs – Mesa Garden Seeds!
As of this writing (November, 2024), I don’t produce my own seed, but I’m hopeful that I can get that process dialed in this winter.
In the meantime, I invite you to check out my seed-grown lithops in the T-Rex Plants shop! Any plants with Cole numbers noted indicate that I’ve been able to track the seedlings from documented seeds to full grown plants.
I do occasionally have plants where the original seedling tag has been lost, and I’m willing to offer those at a discount (I often sell them locally rather than list them online). If you’re interested in some of my “lost tag lithops”, shoot me an email at [email protected] – and I’ll set up a shop listing. 🙂
Thank you for reading, and happy growing!
