Lithops experiment part 2 (2 pics)

It has been five weeks since I started the experiment to see if badly etiolated (is this the term for a plant out of shape due to a lack of light and too much watering?) lithops plants can be saved and corrected. Well, this is how far the plants are now. My initial plan was to make them wrinkle and shrivel to a better size to make it easier for the new leaves to come out next year. The pot was exposed to lots and lots of sun and heat and was not watered at all. In fact, I am not going to water them until next year. I was worried since they've never seen this much sunlight they'd get burnt but there was no problem with that.

Their current state is definitely an improvement. The two less longer plants are slowly nearing the "mark of shortness" I've set for them. The mark being as close as possible to the substrate level. The substrate level shortness is what I want for the long monster as well but it is not realistic within this year. It just needs to shrivel enough for the new leaves to come out of the side and all the "top" to be safely removed. At least that's my optimistic plan for it. Anyway, so far so good. Still alive!

Newcomers - other Mesembs (15 pics)

The other Mesembs I got in Essen mostly have familiar names but also some that are new to me. I'm very excited to grow them all on the windowsill.

My experience with Cheiridopsis was positive so far so I got more of them. Actually, thinking of Cheiridopsis, I imagine rather large plants but the ones I got are so small I could confuse them with Conophytums. I'll try to keep them in this size and shape.

This one is a Cheiridopsis, too! Who would have thought!

There are also two quite different Antimimas. The first one looks just like the Antimima fenestrata I already have now, all covered in dried up leaves, which is a relief. The second one I'd never take for an Antimima at all. But it's a cute little tree.

The young Nananthus margaretiferus came with a promise of beautiful flowers.

The Glottiphyllum neilii is the most compactly grown and intensely colored Glottiphyllum I've ever seen.

I also got a couple of tiny Trichodiademas. I'm still figuring them out. They seem to grow very slowly here.

The Ruschia unidens should become bushy in time.

The other plants are completely new to me and I'll have to read up on them first. The Hereroa looks like a pigmy version of an Ebracteola.

Chasmatophyllum musculinum seem to have beautiful see-through dots but the color is more of a Rabiea.

Erepsia lacera is something completely different with those razor blades for leaves.

And the Drosanthemum I can't even properly get into a picture. It looks very delicate and I'm afraid it might dry off those tiny leaves easily. Not sure if it means it should be watered more or not.

Newcomers - Lithops (13 pics)

Firstly, I'd like to introduce the new lithops I got from Klaus Ingenwepelt. I bought a couple of plants of each kind so there are actually more plants than the photos below and they are still in their original pots and substrates. Normally, lithops have it more cozier at my place, growing in groups of at least two in one container. But I'm generous with room these days and it can wait.

I was not very successful buying adult white-flowering lithops before but I think I have more experience now so I decided to get mostly hallii, karasmontana and julii this time, knowing that they were grown perfectly shaped which will give them a good start on my windowsill. They all have nice and sharp patterns and the best size. Even the aucampiae, that tend to grow huge in commercial nurseries, are so wonderfully small and round. This is definitely the goal for us hobby growers :)

Among the yellow-flowering lithops I really liked L. hookeri v. lutea and would have bought several but there was only one plant left. It has a nice dark color, in contrast with the usual light-green or orange.

And this strange guy is a Conophytum verrucosum, the only cono I can show you as all the others I bought look like the C. ectypum ssp sulcatum below. Photos will follow in the fall.

I'll post the pictures of other mesembs soon, too.

Cactus & Succulent Market in Essen on July 5th (6 pics)

Back to business :)

I have spent such a wonderful day in Essen. I think my friend was pretty bored but I needed to see all those lovely plants in detail so I was just wandering from table to table, letting the impressions sink in. I was also trying to listen to some conversations among cacti growers - those people can be quite eccentric! And I mean it in a best possible way.

Well, I knew where my journey was taking me from the start - to the Klaus Ingenwepelt's mesemb table. So, after I got myself a Sinningia (leucotricha?) and an Albuca spiralis at a very reasonable price (I wanted both for a while) I went straight there. I thought Mr. Ingenwepelt was a little skeptical towards me last year when I told him I grew my plant on a sunny windowsill. I was pretty sure he didn't take me seriously after that. But in fact he remembered me! And, as I reported to him that all his plants have survived and are doing fine, even the conophytums that were back then new to me, we started talking and I learned so much about his way of growing mesembs. Also, I didn't even know his book "Mittagsblumen, Eiskraut und andere Mesembs" has been released this year and now that I have it I'm going to study it cover to cover. As I've probably mentioned several times in this blog already - the way his plants are grown is my absolute goal. I was walking around for a while and when I came back to pick out the plants I wanted to buy from him (I got two boxes!) there was another grower at his table who made me blush very badly when he recognized me as Rika from the Lithops Stories blog right away. I still can not believe this. How did you do it? :) Thank you so much for reading my blog, please email me, I really want to stay in touch and I'm seriously thinking of going to Blankenberge this September. 

We started talking about our plants and all possible things and it was such an amazing experience. I think it was the first time for me to actually actively talk live with mesemb enthusiasts. Thank you so much for this!

The service of Deutsche Bahn

Dear readers, as you might know I went to the Cactus and Succulent Market in Essen on Sunday July 5th and I would rather post a long report about that but there is a pressing matter I feel like I have to write about first.

I went to Essen with a friend by the German railway company Deutsche Bahn. My friend went from Luxembourg and I joined her in Trier. The travel distance Trier-Essen takes 4h30 to 5h according to our plan, depending on how many times we have to change trains. For the whole trip I paid 51€ with BahnCard 25 discount and she paid the full prise of about 85€. So basically it should have been a one-day trip of 4h there and 4h back for me with the return train leaving at 18h00 and arriving back in Trier as early as 21h30.

Good plan, we thought. We even considered delays and possible travel by a later train. There was enough time. At this point I need to mention that we absolutely had to come back the same day as we had work on Monday and she also had to be there for her young child. 

The way there went well. We had to change trains one time more than expected because of delays but it's okay, we thought, usual thing with Deutsche Bahn, no problem. After a wonderful day in Essen we arrived at the train station to take our 18h00 train back. 

On the platform the display first said the train was delayed by several minutes and then "train canceled". No explanation. Fellow travelers we saying it's due to thunderstorms up north and the trains not being able to come through. Well, ok, bad luck, we can take a later train. We went to the information point (huge queue) where a DB employee printed the new travel plans for us for the train leaving at 19h. As it was almost time we went to the platform where the display said "train canceled". No explanation, no directions for further actions, no alternatives, nothing. Couldn't they have said that to us at the info point? Just let us know that no trains will go, not now and not an hour later? Why print fake plans a couple of minutes earlier? Just to make us leave the queue? We could have just as well printed out no-use out-dated plans at the ticket vendor. At the platform no one had a clue what to do. It was rumored that the only way out of Essen must be through Düsseldorf. Note that no official person from Deutsche Bahn was anywhere near and no announcements came except for "the train xy has been canceled". The train to Düsseldorf came and everyone, no matter the original destination, people traveling as far as Munich, just went inside in the hope to be able to find their connection from Düsseldorf. 

Again, no person from the railway staff there to ask what we should do or whether we should better wait.

To make things worse, the train we were on stopped in a town in the middle of nowhere for what felt like at least 20 min. No conductor or anyone telling us what happened. Then came an announcement that nobody could understand (every second syllable missing) but we just assumed we had to get out as it was a longer one. Arrived at the platform someone was saying "platform 2" and we just ran there as desperate as we were and got on a train standing there that actually indeed brought everyone to Düsseldorf (we had no way of knowing whether it would now that I think about it).

In Düsseldorf we went to the ticket counter like everyone else to get our new connection. Only 2 and later 3 persons (out of 11 counters) were there and around 21h it was our turn. The Deutsche Bahn employee told us then that there is absolutely no way we get to Trier and Luxembourg today as there are no trains, everything is canceled due to the weather and it's too late anyway. Is there a bus? "I don't know, it's not my job to know." No apology, no help and no suggestions. We learned from fellow travelers all trains have been canceled since hours. There were absolutely no alternatives in place and not even announcements or any other information for travelers were prepared. Deutsche Bahn didn't even bother to place an employee on the platforms to explain the situation to people or provide coherent speaker announcements. The completely rude guy at the counter printed a connection to Koblenz for us as according to him this is the farthest we can travel today (we thought of taking a taxi from there).

With the new plans for a train leaving at 21h27 we went to the platform just in time to hear the announcement "train is canceled" that obviously has been playing for while. Why print out the plans then? Why make us wait in queue at all? What now? No DB staff on the platform, no suggestions on the displays, no idea what trains are standing there or where they are going. My phone was dead by the time and my friend's didn't work in Germany. We asked someone to use their phone to google (!!) info on where we should go and whether there are any buses we can take that will bring us closer to our destination. Using a phone of a nice and helpful woman my friend remembered that there should be night buses going from Frankfurt Airport to Luxembourg. We didn't know for sure whether there really were buses that day and whether we could take them without reservation and pay cash to the driver or even if there were free seats. On a hunch we got on a train to Frankfurt Airport (that, by the way, was delayed by 85 min by then). The info on the train didn't match the destination at all so we were just hoping it is the correct one.

We arrived in Frankfurt Airport  exhausted after 23h00, got lost, found an info point and yes, there was a bus going to Luxembourg via Trier at 2h45 and we should be able to buy the tickets from the driver (29€). We waited 3 hours to get on it. Ah, should I also mention that we were dressed for the heatwave and not spending the night at the air-conditioned airport and I had two big boxes with plants (mostly stones) with me (calluses on hands now)?

We changed buses at 4h20 in Frankfurt Hahn and I arrived in Trier 5h30 on July 6th while my friend was traveling farther to Luxembourg. It arrived just in time to bring the plants home, change clothes, wash my face and then get on the bus to work at 6h30.

Thank you Deutsche Bahn. I am not going to use your services ever again.

...  is what I'd like to say. But unfortunately people traveling in Germany don't have any alternative but to use Deutsche Bahn. Therefore Deutsche Bahn will never be motivated to improve its service. 

I will try to get my money back this time but I doubt Deutsche Bahn will manage even that. I doubt I will get even an apology.

I'd like to use this as an official complaint. Not about the canceled trains (I understand that the weather is no one's fault), but about how the situation was dealt with and how the travelers were just left there on the platforms and in delayed trains without any help or guidance from the Deutsche Bahn staff.

New pebbles 3 (3 pics)

I tried to grow L. verruculosa before but the plants didn't survived in the long run. This time I got some nicely grown specimen from Kakteen Haage nursery and they are such beauties, especially when arranged naturally. I love the "blood drops" and the color and the shape. It's gonna be difficult to keep them alive but I believe I have better conditions for my plants now compared to the old apartment so we'll see.

New pebbles 2 (5 pics)

I'll continue the introductions :)
The new guys are the lovely L. dinteri C206 from Cono's Paradise nursery (german), L. lesliei v. hornii C015 from Rare Plants nursery (czech) and some surprisingly well-grown L. schwantesii from a local hardware store.

New pebbles (4 pics)

Since I have much more room now I'm getting more plants. I've sown some too but the heatwave is trying very hard to ruin it. The adult plants are truly enjoying it! It's 38°C in the shade, no idea how much in the sun, it's crazy! And it seems the living stones can't get enough of it.

Anyway, I'll be posting about new pebbles this weekend and will start with Lithops ruschiorum I purchased recently. They vary from completely white and opaque to white with fine golden lines. The surface is a bit  rough, similar to L. vallis-mariae, I imagine, eve though I've never had those.