My lithops is disgorging!

Developing true leaves? Budding? I'm not sure what the proper term is, but one of my lithops seedlings is developing a new set of leaves. Exciting!

To be honest, it also reminds me a little bit of this classic scene (not for the squeamish!):

Lithops flowering timelapse

I hope my little guys get big enough to flower eventually.

From Flickr.

Moonflower craziness, seedlings + lithops

I don't know why I was so shocked yesterday when I saw that my moonflower seeds had exploded into growth only 4 short days after planting given what happened last time but I was. This time around, I think I got the moisture level right because there's no white mold. Hopefully, they don't turn purple or get eaten by bugs.

Moonflower top growth

Moonflower bottom growth

Speaking of getting eaten by bugs, here's what nice and healthy bug-free bok choy looks like. Beautiful, isn't it?

In fact, all of my second generation (for 2011) seedlings are pretty healthy looking, although some of the older parts of the stems growth on the orachs and brassicas look a little skinny and weak compared to the newer growth (i.e., thinner at the bottom of the stem than at the top). The transition between skinny and fat at the node where the seed leaves grew from. This could probably be corrected by growing them next time at lower temperatures and with the lights a bit closer after germination.

Second gen seedlings 2011

Di Cicco Broccoli

Red orach

Orach

As for my lithops, they all seem to be doing interesting things. There are nice plump lithops and then there are wrinkly-looking guys. Some are changing colours, others are retreating into the ground, and yet others ... are they supposed to look like that?

Is this normal?

Lithops Grow-along Day 26

Even more little green guys have been appearing over the last several days. I love how they look like bags of glistening emeralds. Some are starting to darken now, though. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The purple menace

So my lovely, vigorous moonflower seedling has been gradually turning purple over the last several days. What's up with that? The purpleness started with the stem and crept its way up into the veins of the seed leaves. The leaves themselves are now a mottled with yellow, green, and purple-black areas instead of the healthy green of a couple days ago.

February 28: Lower stem purple but otherwise healthy looking

March 1: Seedling still looks healthy ...

March 1: ... and so I'm not worried yet

March 3: Now worried. Purple stem, veins. Leaves purple-black, yellow. Sad trombone.

Even though some other seedlings also have purple stems, and true leaves appear to be emerging from this moonflower seedling (see below), the seed leaves look pretty unhealthy. Am I worrying too much?

Moonflower crotch shot. Wonder what kind of search engine referrals this will bring?

Some googling leads me to believe that this may be due to impaired phosphorus uptake and the resultant  increased concentration of anthrocyanins in the plant due to restricted transport of sugars around the plant. Possible culprits include restricted root growth (compacted soils), too-cold or too-moist soils, too much light, or a shortage of micronutrients (B, Fe, Mg) (Why are corn seedlings turning purple?, Purple pepper leaves, Help! My seedlings are turning purple, what do I do? Function of phosphorus in plants). Given that it's pretty warm in the propagator, the soil is moist-but-not-wet, and there's a rootlet poking out of the drainage hole at the bottom of the pack, I am leaning towards restricted root growth. Time to pot it up, I guess ...

Hopefully the toilet paper rolls are deep enough for the moonflower seedlings in Dirt Gently's Nursery for Slightly Fungus-ridden Toilet Paper Rolls.

In the same plastic 4-pack as the purple moonflower, a couple of "chinese spinach" seedlings seemed to have succumbed to damping off, or maybe they were just weak to begin with. I will have to keep an eye on things. I wasn't so concerned about how purple they were because that's how they came up.

February 27

February 28

March 1: 2 weak-looking seedlings top centre

March 3: Weak seedlings die

March 3

It looks like even more little lithops seedlings have appeared overnight. They are delivering 100% concentrated happy like champs.

Meanwhile, in Dirt Gently's Nursery for Slightly Fungus-ridden Toilet Paper Rolls, the seedlings keep on coming up and the white fluffy fungus seems to have mostly disappeared. You can see that the spinach and bok choy seedlings are starting to develop true leaves. Like the moonflower, the stems of some of the seedlings are also turning purple, but it can't be because of restricted root growth: the seedlings are tiny, and there's at least 3" of medium in the TP rolls.

February 28: bacopa seedlings emerging from pellet

March 3: Bacopa seedlings

Bok choy: 94% germination!

Purple in front, green in back. WTF?

True leaves developing on most bok choy seedlings

March 3: Spinach

March 3: Spinach true leaves budding

March 3: Cape daisy with 100% germination

March 3: Tree & Twig carrots

 The ivy geraniums continue to bloom under lights.

Lithops Grow-along Day 10

The little guys keep growing and growing. There are two clusters of growth as well as one guy off by himself now. There don't seem to be any more sprouts coming up, and I think I might've actually accidentally knocked over a couple of them despite using a gentle mister. I've taken to misting the saran wrap cover rather than the growing area directly to avoid any more lithops baby killing.

Lithops Grow-along Day 6

The older seedlings are looking rather robust now, and some new ones are coming up as well.

Lithops Grow-along Day 4: More seedlings!

Lithops Grow-along Day 3: Seedlings!

I thought I saw some green when I checked up on my lithops pot this morning, but I couldn't be certain. I looked a little closer, and yup: seedlings! I counted at least a dozen little green guys with the help of my camera's digital macro function. I'm hoping the white filaments are roots, and not fungal growth ...

Lithops Grow-along

Lithops: a genus of super slow-growing stealth succulents. It's easy to see why they're also known as living stones.

Little lithops via Super Fantastic on Flickr

I bought a packet of lithops seeds from Thompson & Morgan earlier this year and promptly forgot that I had them until Gayla Trail posted about her lithops seedlings a couple of weeks ago and encouraged me to do join the grow-along happening on her forum.

I finally got around to tearing open the packet to sow them Wednesday and I was amazed at how tiny the seeds were. My second thought was that for $5.99, T&M sure skimped on the seeds - there were roughly 40 in the packet. By comparison, I learned from Gayla that you can get the same amount of seeds from Mesa Garden and Cono's Paradise for less than half the price and you can buy specific species and cultivars from them. Boo-urns T&M!

Undaunted, I sowed the seeds into moist cactus potting soil - they're the tiny orange spheres in the centre of the picture below (click to zoom), and then sprinkled some fine sand on top.

To keep the soil moist, I covered with the pot using saran wrap and an elastic. Every day is Sweater Day chez Dirt Gently, so a heating pad is a must to keep the seeds cozy. Light is required for germination, so into the light garden they go!

Hopefully, in a week or so, I'll have a pot full of happy little lithops seedlings! In the meantime, I found some lithops reading to keep me entertained until then:

• Steven Hammer's The New Mastering the Art of Growing Mesembs
• Nick Rowlette's hyper-informative Lithops.info
• Dave's Garden has a neat thread following the growth of some lithops seedlings