If these were mine, I would do nothing to them. Leave them in a warm sunny spot, provided they are adapted to it, and wait. The new leaves can get all they need from the old leaves. When the old leaves are gone or virtually gone, you can spray them to wake up the roots, then water them.

You may have to adapt this strategy for your tropical climate. They may go dormant through the hot humid part of summer, the Pleiospilos certainly will unless it is kept in an air-conditioned location. The strength of your winter sun may mean that the new leaves get stressed and wrinkled, you can spray them if this happens. The Pleiospilos in particular may enjoy being sprayed and growing through your winter, then flowering spring. However you adapt, get rid of all except a single pair of leaves by next summer.

Most mesembs go dormant in very hot humid weather. They should not be watered at those times, or at most just sprayed if they become especially stressed.

They look fine. My Lithops haven't started forming new bodies yet but we are in totally different climates. The Lithops look like L. fulviceps 'Aurea', right?

As far as the Pleiospilos, my only other advice would be to be very stingy with water. P bolusii has a greater tendency than P nelii to retain more than 1 pair of leaves, but the only way to prevent and reverse this is to cut down on watering and let the plant dehydrate to the point that it must resorb water from the older leaves. Where humidity is high, "stacking" is more likely. It is not particularly dangerous or harmful to the plant, but it is unnatural and not considered desirable...and it may interfere with flowering.

x

I have found Pleiospilos to flower well even when stacked but the plants are not so attractive as a well-grown single "split rock". On the other hand, plants can stay alive on absolutely tiny amounts of water but will not flower. Somewhere in between gives you nice flowers and a compact plant. A stacked Pleiospilos can go for a year or more without water but that is not ideal because they will simply go dormant after a while, so you should give them an occasional spray to keep them awake. Full sun is a big help in keeping them in check.

Sorry to ask a stupid question. Do the new leaves only replace the old ones or do you eventually end up with 2 plants where there was one?

no such thing as a stupid question...only a stupid answer.

With the highly succulent mesembs, new leaves are pretty much always supposed to replace old ones - where old leaves linger, they remain right below the new ones.

But sometimes splits occur and result in 2+ sets of bodies from new leaves, but this is highly variable depending on the species. Some remain solitary, others are prolific clumpers.

x

Thanks for all your advice. I have noticed that the old leaves are sort of "soft". Does this mean there's less water within because the new leaves are sucking it off?

Xuan

Yup, the old leaves, to the outside of the new ones, will get softer and then start to look really ill. They are being sucked dry, it is normal.