Bought these a few days ago and just brought some more grit to repot them properly. My only concern is I want to quarantine these for the next few weeks so they dont infect other plants I have but will they be ok without a grow light for a couple of weeks? Ive put them in my bedroom window now but it isnt sunny at all in the UK atm. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
by According-Caramel340
4 Comments
I would pop them in a big transparent plastic bag with tiny holes in and leave them on the windowsill. Lack of light would be very damaging. As long as the bag doesn’t get a lot of condensation it should be ok.
Sometimes you need to just do the best you can, not the ideal industry standard.
I don’t think lithops get a lot of pests. But if you need to keep them apart, you might go for a clip light until you can put them somewhere brighter for good. This one usually keeps light-hungry plants happy:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CHDBY2PD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CHDBY2PD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8)
They won’t be ok with no light, I would immediately remove them from that soil & repot. Put them in a window or under a grow light for a few weeks, Then move them to full sun eventually.
So I’ll preface this by saying I’m new to Lithops, so I dont have a super long time to back up this method. But I do have 25+ lithops that are all healthy and I have done this with every single one. The few I have lost were already too far gone when I got them.
I get mine out of the soil they come in immediately. That soil not only is usually bad for lithops, but it can also harbor eggs/bugs.
After I gently get as much soil off the taproot as possible, I dip the entire plant into food grade Diatomaceous Earth. So its packed into every nook and cranny. They sit in a tray like that for the rest of that first day, under my grow lights. That DE will kill most types of larvae/adult pests. Then at the end of that first day I gently brush off the DE from the head of the plants, but leave a light dusting in any cracks and leave the roots covered in DE.
I leave the dusted off DE in the bottom of the tray, and add more if necessary, so theres a complete covering of the bottom of the little tray theyre in. Then I prop them up against the sides of the tray so the top of the plant has access to the grow light and leave them be.
With the DE in the tray, any little beasties that try to leave the plant will fall into it and die. With it in the cracks and lightly dusted on the plant, if they crawl on it they will die. They stay like that at least 5 days to cover any new hatching of eggs. I actually left one batch like that for almost 10 days, just because I got busy. They were happy 🤷🏼♀️ Once theyre planted I will periodically add a light dusting to the tops and around the base. And I brush off the roots before planting so it doesnt clog up the root area once I start watering.
I do have a quarantine area with its own lights but I usually leave my DE dusted lithops in the main area unless theres an active infestation.
Here’s the little guys I bought yesterday. First 4-8 hours packed with DE, and now theyre dusted off and propped up to recieve light!
https://preview.redd.it/5glb6eroipzg1.jpeg?width=4096&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=337ac5eeed97f6dbeac13903a7a4311e8121f4fd