2. Setup

My growing setup is rustic. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to put up a greenhouse but for now the best approximation will have to do. The climate here is pretty good for Lithops. We have about 300 days of sunshine a year, relatively low rainfall (500 - 1000mm p.a., during summer). Summer temperatures are from the mid teens to mid thirties. Winter is short, dry and mild with temperatures going down to 0 °C only for short periods. Winter days are mostly sunny even if cool and snow is unknown.

Rainfall, while modest, is still too much for Lithops so I keep them under a sheet of 6mm glass. (Insist on toughened safety glass, which is more expensive but not nearly as expensive a lost life or limb!) On the glass I place a double layer of frost cover to create light shading since our direct sun burns Lithops. This setup also keeps the birds out. I think they mistake the plants for food, pull them out of the ground and when they discover they're not terribly appetising they spit them out and leave them there. During the hottest summer months from around October to February I lay a couple of sticks on the glass to give a bit of extra shade, since things can get extremely hot and bright during that period.

For watering I use these principles.

I only feed occasionally - perhaps twice a year with a liquid fertiliser. One grower remarks "before you fertilise more than once, think about just what this tiny plant is going to do with accumulated fertiliser, a plant that only grows two leaves a year..."  Indeed!

Two tables	Young seedlings	Some adults & older seedlings
	Extra shading in mid summer

1. For A Start

These are some of my Lithops which are mostly young seedlings. However, a quick disclaimer on taxonomy. These little jewels interest me for their beauty rather than for scientific or taxonomic intrigues. As a result I'm not terribly bothered with the details of nomenclature and definitely not down to the last sub-specific taxon. The names used here - good, bad, ugly or indifferent are mostly just those which were given by the supplier of the seeds or plant. It's useful to note that often seedlings of Lithops cultivars vary so much from their parents that they can hardly be called the same cultivar. I won't make the distinction in future and the names I use here should be read as if prefixed with probably a descendant of.

L. verruculosa inae	L. hallii ‘Green Soapstone’	L. karasmontana ‘Blood Red’
L. karasmontana ‘Orange’	L. julii  C064	L.  julii  reticulate form C064c
L. schwantesii C080	L. hallii  salicola reticulata C087	L. hallii  salicola reticulata grey form C087a
L. hallii  C119	L. lesliei Kimberley form C341	L. karasmontana 'sensu Dinter!' - Mesa #1634