FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

hello there!
apart from growing carnivorous plants, I am a big fan of succulents! when I was in a botanical garden a few months ago I saw an amazing kind of them: living stones. I decided that if I will have more space I buy them..but I really do not know much about their cultivation.. I found one site that offers different pebbles in one package (https://gardenseedsmarket.com/living-st ... s-sp..html) and I need your help.
1) How should I grow them?
2) What soil would be good for them?
3) Sunny place or shady? Where to place them?
4) How often to water them?
5) Do they look as good as on the pictures?
Thank you all for your advices..If you have your own photos please share them!

1) How should I grow them?

When they are growing new leaves they use the water/nutriants in the old leaves until they are husks. DO NOT water them during this time! Once they are simply a set(2) of leaves again, treat like a typical succulent. They do have a 'wet' and 'dry' season that must be followed, but once you understand it, they are easy.

2) What soil would be good for them?

Regular succulent mix is fine, I use the stuff by Shultz.

3) Sunny place or shady? Where to place them?

Pretty much at least 4-6hrs direct, indirect the rest of the day. But I've seen them in 12+.

4) How often to water them?

See #1.

5) Do they look as good as on the pictures?

With the right care, yes. They will even flower. There are plenty of sites that talk about them, Google Lithops and start reading!

Oh, really thank you! So I am ordering them! I will follow your advices and do my best!

They're really quite easy. Just never water them from the Oct-Nov timeframe until spring. The leaves will shrivel up, scream, cry, plead and beg for water, but don't do it. Eventually the leaves wither to dried husks and you can see the new pair (or 2 pairs if you're lucky) of leaves inside around April. At that point you can water again. Most people give in and murder them with water in Jan because they look like they're dying.

IME, mice will eat them, and small children can't resist uprooting them. Most of the ones you see in garden centers are etoliated, grown in the correct amount of light they're nearly level with the soil and their color is best. I grow mine in 75% turface, 25% yard dirt. All cacti and succulents should be removed from the peat-moss they come in and moved to something like that turface mix, there's no peat in the desert and C&S like to fully dry between waterings. Bone dry peat is hydrophobic and difficult to rewet, resulting in some plants not getting enough water, while others get soggy and rot.

For potting media, I strongly recommend something that is gritty and has little organic material in it, like pumice with a mixture a little bit of dirt and coarse sand.

I used to have some living stones but I killed them because I read on a website that you're supposed to water them only when they are growing their new leaves. You're not supposed to water them when they are growing new leaves.

I have one that's extremely low maintenance... a lot of light and no water so far. I heard that mesa garden is a good place to purchase seeds online so I gave it a shot. We'll see how it goes.