Pic 1 has way more contrast than how they look in real life, but I'm still worried, especially since most of the sides below the head are fairly soft (although I can feel something firm inside near many of the bases).
Although the substrate was dry and they looked okay to be just sitting in the substrate visible in Pic 3 for maybe two more weeks, it turns out that there's still too much vermiculite in the substrate, so unpotting was the right decision.
Their roots are surprisingly extensively developed and many fine root hairs were visible (Pic 1 is after I broke some of the finer root hairs off too), unlike the other batch of reddish purple lithops I got from this supplier which were in super bad shape (super plump, etiolated, several obviously rotted at the base when I unpotted, many rotted and died quickly before ever being watered). I hope that these are still actually healthy :')
Unfortunately, as you can see, I tore off some of the dried up old leaves with tweezers before I found out that it's a bad idea. I was scared that when I do water, they're going to trap too much moisture and potentially rot the base (I live in high humidity), plus the fact that some of them had black mold (?) despite everything being completely dry at this point.
They're going to sit in the dry paper box like this for a few days to recover from the root damage of unpotting + for a pot of the suitable size to deliver.
Since they've been sitting in bone-dry substrate for an unknown amount of time and the sides are kind of soft (but not mushy like a pack of water, like my experience with obvious rot), I'm not sure when I should be watering them and how thoroughly so? Their root hairs still seem to be doing okay and the roots don't seem dried up at this point. They're not concave at the top.
by Top_Development_1777
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