And more seedlings (2 pics)

Both Gibbaeum dispar and Rhinephyllum muirii seelings are now 7 months old. What a difference in size! Nothing out of the ordinarily though. Still, I didn't expect Rhinephyllum to develop side branches so quickly (there are 2 seedlings). A nice surprise :) Gibbaeum are slow but steady.

More mesemb seedlings (3 pics)

Sown in August these Aloinopsis seedlings looked weak and grew extremely slowly for such a long time. Now something triggered the new growth (sudden increase in sunlight? ;) ) and you can see how happy they are. New leaves, more texture, even the first "teeth"! 

Below some random seedlings mess you can find on my windowsill... XD

(Titanopsis primosii and Stomatium alboroseum 'rubrum', which has nothing rubrum to it)

Aloinopsis malherbei seedlings today

These A. malherbei seedlings are now 9 months old. After a long time of growth-stop during the colder months they've recently started growing again and look how fat and meaty the leaves are! :) 

Rabiea albipuncta seedlings (2 pics)

The Rabiea albipuncta seedlings are now 4 months old and growing second pairs of true leaves. When the leaves first appeared they looked like thin blades. Now they are quite succulent.

My older plant is also doing well as far as I can tell. It dried off some older leaves (the ones that were damaged two years ago) showing woody branches and got me worried for a bit it doesn't look bad and all the new growth looks fat and healthy. 

Btw, I'm puzzled at the name. Neither my old plant nor the seedlings show any sign of white dots of some sort. Maybe with some imagination... 

L. lesliei ssp. burchellii 2nd selection (2 pics)

This is the burchellii's selection of plants with more "lines" (rather than windows). They still don't look like typical burchelliis to me, more like regular v. lesliei. Cute and nicely shaped though :) They should outgrow their pot this year... I've decided to look for an apartment during the holidays in a week. For sure now. 100%. My plants need it (probably more than I do) XD

Aucampiae seedlings

Just a quick update on the L. aucampiae 'White Flower' C2A seedlings, grown from own seeds (sowing 2012). Love the color!

L. lesliei ssp. burchellii today (6 pics)

These L. lesliei ssp. burchellii C308 seedlings hatched in June 2011 and this year they finally present an adult-like look. You can follow back their development here, here, here and here. 

On the pic below is my "open-windowed selection". :) I'll make an entry about the selection of heavily patterned burchellii shortly.

Trichodiadema calvatum

Another new plant on the windowsill.

I liked the little T. densum so much I wanted another one of the kind. I had to find out the hard way that I'm not used to having spines around here. It's like the Trichodiadema is protecting all the plants around it by stinging me. "Don't touch my friends!" :)

Some two-headed-ness (10 pics)

These days you can feel the spring and the regeneration that took the lithops so long to do before progresses in no time. The new leaves are getting bigger every day and the old ones disappear. 

Quite some of them have gotten two-headed and I'm especially glad to see the plants I grew from seed do that ♥

Here come the stories!

These two L. lesliei v. minor C6 belong to my very first lithops sowing back in 2008. Yes, they are this old! Under windowsill conditions and without any doping they mature very slowly. They haven't flowered yet but this year there were dried up rests of flowers inside so at least they tried. Maybe they'll have more strength this year. After all the chances have doubled now ;)

A random L. lesliei 'Albinica' C36A. It doesn't have any stories to tell yet. You can see my finger nail on the photo for some scale XD

I got these L. hallii v. ochracea C111 in 2010 as tiny seedlings. They are still quite small but at least there are more heads now.

These L. bromfieldii v. glaudinae C382 you know from their very young age. :D Sown back in 2010 they turned out to be very grateful plants with the most agreeable character. One of them has now two heads.

Other bromfieldii, L. bromfieldii v. insularis 'Sulphurea' C362, all went two-headed last year. This year one of them went triple. I read that Sulphureas eagerly grow multiple heads.

This L. julii ssp. fulleri v. brunnea C179 is actually a miracle. I could never keep any other L. julii alive for more than a couple of years but I have this one since 2008! It always regenerates properly and without any problems and never changes much except for this year. This change needs to be documented :)

The rest don't have stories yet. They are more or less new tenants, arrived in 2012 and 2013. 

A. schooneesii seedlings 9 months old (2 pics)

Remember my Aloinopsis schooneesii seedlings? Sown in June 2013 they are now slowly getting too big for their pot. They more or less rested over the winter but recently started to grow new leaves one pair after another. Here is their well-deserved group picture. The big dark kid in the back looks especially fine :)

You might have been following the development of this little guy over on twitter. It's been growing triplet leaves for a while and I'm really curious whether the next leaf-set will be the same or it will return to normal. So cute!

L. fulviceps these days (5 pics)

Isn't it pretty? New shiny leaves slowly working through the old ones? :)
I'm very happy with how my Lithops fulviceps are regenerating this year.

The L. fulviceps v. lactinea are themselves quite large but they are dutifully transferring everything useful from the old leaves into new and are now showing their cute dotty faces. I find it interessting and unusual how the new leaves of these pale-bluish-white plants come out in deap orange. The color of the plants on the photos is already getting paler but at first it's like a completely different plant!

My L. fulviceps v. fulviceps 'Aurea' are all done. In fact, I was worried because they started regenerating in summer. I thought they might be finished before the winter and I will have to water them during the dark time and ruin their appearance and health by that. All worries were for nothing - they took their sweet time and fully changed only recently. Now they are ready for the water and for the spring sun.

The plant to the right is the one which photo I use as my user pic, btw. ;) It is now in its second year of two-headed-ness.

New arrivals: Gibbaeum, Argyroderma and Ebracteola (4 pics)

I was able to free some room with magic (otherwise known as transplantation and clever tray placement) and could get myself more mesembs. I have several pots with seedlings that will need more room sometime soon but I'm going to ignore this fact for now ;)

The new guys are:

Ebracteola wilmaniae
It arrived with the rests of a flower. Nice light rose color and lovely see-through leaves.

Argyroderma fissum

I find it curious because if you think of an Argyroderma you think of a spheroid. This one has long leaves. A bit wrinkly but a week after this picture was taken it has shown a good growth. 

By the way, you can see a little clay jug (with a cat drown on it) to the right. This is what I use to water my plants from, i.e. to measure how much water they get per pot. The regular watering means half the jug for a pot just like on the picture below (ca 5x5x8,5 cm). I take a full jug if the plant is seriously thirsty.

Gibbaeum geminum

An old and beautifully bonsai-like plant. I actually got it under a name G. dispar but it is clearly not. It looks just like my younger G. geminum so I'm calling it that now.

My other Gibbaeum geminum are feeling fine sharing their pots with Conophytum, Adromischus and Neohenricia. :)

Monilaria

Still no spring around here... I'll continue posting dark and/or blue-ish pictures then ^^a

This is my very first Monilaria and even though I read about the care and the yearly life cycle of this plant I'm still not sure that everything's fine. Is this the appropriate look for it this time of the year? I know that the leaves will be completely dry in summer but are they supposed to be this soft already? Comments appreciated :)

Crassula ausensis ssp. titanopsis (2 pics)

I'm really happy with how the Crassula ausensis ssp. titanopsis is turning out. After a rough start due to painful acclimation it has finally gotten used to the new situation and had a lot of flowers. Now it has a second wave of flowering, a smaller one, but still such a treat! 

If I focus the camera on the plant itself you can see new fresh leaves coming out from everywhere. ♡