Well Mara, you can always try a test batch and see how it works. If it fails, you can always wait till next spring, I last saw Mesa Garden, and they have sold out on alot of their seeds. I had good results with them too,

Bernard - I didn't use a humidity tray. Even with my fan running on high, humidity is around 50% under my grow lights. Temperature ranges between 21-35C (70-95F). They are lit by the edge of my grow lights, around 500fc / 10 DLI.

What are your humidity levels at?

I'll be hatching my various mesembs under lights but without a heating pad. The cultural requirements for most seem to be temps between 60 and 75 F for good germination. I have heard that fluorescents provide enough heat. I have used a heating pad for cacti in the past but I turned it off at night along with the lights. If the lithops, which I've grown before and are very cooperative don't pop fairly quickly, I'll add some heat. I'm in central Wisconsin, so the whole herd comes in for the winter, though they like my south-facing windows and patio. I'm looking forward to some fall and winter blooming plants, as nearly all the cacti are summer bloomers. Mesa Garden has shipped my seeds. I'll have to get serious about pounding some charcoal. Anyone used perlite much as part of a seeding mix?

Etra - I tried to use perlite, but the pieces were too big and the seedlings kept falling through. To solve this, I removed my seedlings, layered a bunch of horticultural sand on top of perlite, and re-planted them.

These seedlings look nothing like the parent plant! =)

Lol, hatching.

ewwmayo--Where did you get your sand? Some growers have used builder's sand, but that sounds risky to me. Wouldn't there possibly be unknown contaminants? Could you wash it first? I've used pet store sand (meant for aquarium substrates or reptile tanks) but not in any quantity. Bird grit and aquarium gravel are useful for topping off pots when the plants are big enough for transplanting. Maybe those could be mixed into seedling starter...

I got it from my local greenhouse. Most of the garden centers here carry it too. It's clean and inert for plants. More expensive than builders sand since it comes in smallish bags, not 25kg bags (not sure if that is a good thing or not, ha).

I am also using aquarium sand for topdressing, but I think it was even more expensive than horticultural sand.

Lastly, most of the crushed aggregates (concrete sand, etc.) locally are pure dolomitic limestone, which I don't think is the best choice for growing. That's just the nature of the Canadian geography I guess. =)

I am off to get some lava sand today and some granite sand. I think that is washed decomposed granite. I am getting it from a landscape bulk soil place. I take my 10 gallon pot and fill up.

When washing things, other than maybe stupid perlite, I find more dirt and small particulates are better removed with the fill, swirl and pour method.

what's everyone else's experience?

ewwmayo--thanks for the feedback. I ended up getting aquarium sand. I looked for play sand--the kind you put in sandboxes for kids, but I guess it's the wrong season for building sandboxes because I couldn't find any. I noticed the cactus soil mix I got already has perlite in it, but I agree perlite is hard to work with. I'm wondering if pulsing it in a food processor would make the particles small enough. I found small aluminum bread pans that come with their own clear plastic domes--they look promising.

Play sand isn't a good ingredient from my understanding. Can someone more educated please illuminate this topic for us?

Nobody has said any thing regarding the use of ' play sand' to seed start them.

Here are my updates guys! I took them last night.

They are looking more like Lithops now. The babies in the cardboard pots didn't make it. I think the substrate of the pot material dries too fast, and they ended up drying to death. Lesson learnt though, luckily they were only a test batch.

Love them, Bernard! Thank you for the update. They are so adorable!

Looking great there Bernard. I am so happy to hear that your germination went well. They will be big before you know it.

Tracy

Hey folks, yet another month, another update. I have to admit that I wasn't very attentive to my seedlings now, on days I would have forgotten to water them for a week, but they seem to do fine and colored up really well. btw, these were completely grown under lights, I feel this way, I can control the temp and settings more.

Not forgetting the ones in the cardbox pots, they don't seem to have the growth progress as the plastic ones.. perhaps soil moisture plays a huge role in seedling growth here..

More Progress updates!

Not sure if there's any major growth, but I'm happy to say the humidity tray watering method really does its job. I'm looking into reducing my watering frequency now..

So cute! Good job on them, I hope I can do just as well with my seeds!

Inspiring work. I adore watching seedlings develop.

At what point did you discard the bag/humidity dome?

Thanks Christina!

Rooftopbkyln, I took the baggie off when the seedlings are about 2 weeks old. Essentially, when I saw the newly grown roots found a good foothold into the mix, off the baggie goes, and they sit into a humidity tray that I will always top up when dry.

After about a month, you can slowly reduce the frequency of topping up water into the tray. now I do it close to once every 2 weeks and they seem to be done fine.

Bernard

Awesome! I'm going to try this, just planted (if you can call it that) some Titanopsis seeds last night.

Spent a LONG time trying to get all the seeds out of the seed pod, wow talk about tedious.

Mayo -- I look forward to your pics and many babies seedlings. Once again, it's based on experience to best sow seeds on plastic pots, not clay or breathable substrate. Baby roots needs the protection of moisture to be kept alive.

Bernard - 10 days later, I have Titanopsis calcarea seedlings! From one seed pod, I counted about 80 seedlings that germinated. I had put a small open ziplock bag over the pot (bottom of bag left open). Kept in fairly bright light.

No idea what I'll do when these grow all up, but for now they are very tiny. This is a plastic pot filled with sifted perlite and a layer of horticultural sand on the top.

Mayo -- How Tantalizing!! Congrats of popping so many babies!

Based on my past searches in the forum, I've learnt a great deal from very experienced members on propagating Mesembs -- Xenophytenyc/Steven and Hanzrobo/Ryan. Maybe you can stalk their profile pages to read more about some "tried and proven" methods in propagating.

Here's a snippet posted by Ryan that may address your concerns about how to repot seedlings.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1842784/84-lithops-in-a-4-pot-yo-ho-ho-and-a-bucket-of-soil

More advise from Xeno/Steven:

1. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1757272/lithops-from-seeds-3qs?n=5

2)http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1849688/mesembs-say-meh-to-cold

The next best tip from Xeno/Steven is to start a humidity tray for your seedlings, and give them lots of airflow. Once the tray is dry, repeat by filling up the tray with water. Personally this step has been successful for me thus far, and it trains your seedings to "root deeper" for more water and moisture. After each week, you can slowly decrease the frequency of filling up the tray as time goes by.

Ryan's potting technique is brilliant!! I'm going to do that the next time I pot up small seedlings/cuttings. Thanks for the links and tips.

I thought it would be a very very long time before I would attempt to grow anything from seed, but now I have a few pots going.

Growing from seed has been my favorite plant related activity to date.

Still generally terrified of lithops after having my very first turn to jelly very quickly (came from home depot in 1.75" pot, no real loss).

Bernard, thanks a ton for that repotting post, never occurred to me and I think it likely has many applications beyond lithops :)

Daniel

Mayo -- you are a magnificent grower too! I thoroughly enjoyed all your research and findings posted here on growing all your plants. I wished I have that much dedication and time to contribute. And also perhaps with that, I will have lesser plant dying due to the lack of my attention.

Will be happy to see more updates of your seeds!

Daniel -- Glad you enjoyed the read. They are a lot of valuable resources here, which is amazing.

I bought a couple of these tiny guys from HD too, so far 1 had died.. Probably underwatered. I didn't pay them much attention. It just became crispy and wrinkled one morning. For lithops, they don't like much movements to their roots. So even lifting the pots will cause disturbance to the plant. They also prefer very deep pots, so their roots can be protected from heat/cold.

Seedlings on the other hand are easier to understand, because you can track their growing phase. And they usually like moisture until they shred their first true leaves.

I realized I don't take enough photos of my plants now. So here they are, 3 months strong..

Here are the seedlings.. 11.27.15

Lol Houzz mobile only allows 4 pics per post

Bernard - Always good to see an update! My Fenestraria is now growing like crazy, which makes me really happy. Yours looks really good - maybe by some miracle mine will get that big by Spring.

I like your Lithops with the spots on top. In fact, I just ordered two terricolors (which also have dotted patterns) which I am excited to get within the next week or two.

With my own Lithops, I haven't had any issues moving my pots around and disturbing them. However, I can see that if you destroy the fine rootage they can take a long time to recover depending whether they are in growth/dormant states.

Hopefully it is true that growing from seed can be easier! I already killed two Titanopsis (adult plants) this summer... hopefully I don't somehow manage to kill at least 50 more. Ha.

Mayo, I have bad news. Just finished my move yesterday to my new apt. For some reason, my Fenestraria/Baby toes felt threatened during the transit and they are now all limping to the side. I hope some water and stability can revive them. So saddening..

Oh bummer! I think they should recover if it's only been bumped around a bit.

Here is how mine is doing - lots of new growth but thirsty (just watered it):

the seedlings are so tiny and cute! Makes me want to go some!

So cute! I just bought some seeds from dhgate lol I hope they work

12/21

Yet another update! So my seedlings survived the move, and the favorably warm pre-winter gave my babies extra time into their growth period..

Remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that my seedlings might have algae growing on them, so when I paid closer attention to them, they are actually shredding into their first true leaves! Hence they are looking alittle unslightly in terms of appearance, but I am no doubt the most delightful daddy here, knowing that they are actually showing great progress.

Enjoy! Truly love these marvelous little living stones. Never a dull moment..

Bernard

Tracy! I spent my past weekend sowing the rest of the seeds I had left. No easy feat, but definitely very rewarding and exciting to await sprouts popping up over the next few weeks.

Kevin, my fenestraria are propping themselves back up again! They seemed to enjoy their new spot by the bedroom windowsills just fine.

Bernard

Bernard - Love seeing the updates and all that work you put into getting those seeds (hopefully) growing. I'm sure it won't be long.

Kikithor - Hope you get your seeds soon! I think around now is supposed to be a good time for growing Mesemb seeds. At least, that's what I've heard.

Here is the progress on my own:

N. sibbettii - Not that many seedlings survived because I had to transport them over 500km back and forth... plus leave them in someone else's care in sub-optimal conditions. A little sad, but hopefully it will be enough.

T. calcarea - Seem to be doing alright. They're starting to get bigger now and are fun to look at.

And that's it for my seedlings for now!

Tracy, I must say your dinosaurs and Adenium all look good! Maybe in the next few years, I will expand my spectrum into pachypodiums and adeniums.

By then, you will be my shifu on growing them.

Seasonal cheers, Bernard

Tracy, as promised.. here are my sprouts so far...

And also I get a chance to play with my new iphone marco camera.

Astrophtytums, very robustly sprouting!

They all seemed to have this webbing like thread forming. I keep trying to screen for any bugs or spiders causing this, but to no avail. I hope it's a natural reaction from the seeds. It's strange that this only happens to all my cacti seeds, not my lithops pots.

Lithops assorted..

Bernard they look fantastic! Nicely captured with the macro lens. The little web you are seeing is definitely an intruder. An unwelcome guest. The seeds wouldn't produce the web, only a living being can do that. It doesn't look like any type of infestation to me, maybe a lone straggler. Hopefully he will drown on your next watering. Keep the pictures coming!

Tracy

Thanks Tracy.. I'll have to peak closer.. it's weird that this little critter only chose the pots with the cacti seeds.. Do you think it could possibly be feeding on the sprouts or seeds itself? I don't remember spiders being harmful to plants.. unless they are spider mites..

Bad news into the new year.. I have some babies dying.. Thinking that since they are starting to shred their first true leaves, I thought reducing water would be a great idea. WRONG! 3 out of 4 pots seemed to handled it better, but 1 pot is starting to hang on with dear life..

I know seedlings generally need to be kept moist for at least 1-2 years of their life span before they can be treated like adults.. I guess I was being to ambitious with my goals. Need to scale back..

Jan 4th 2016

And I'm also experiencing my first leaf split!! Really Exciting!

On the bright side your success rate % is great for a first try

A small update on some of my Mesembs from seed today. Having to leave them in the care of others soon for a little while, so I hope they survive and continue to grow well.

Neohenricia sibbetti at 4 months.

Lithops karasmontana at 1 month.

Titanopsis calcarea at 2 months.

Kevin, your seedlings are looking great! Esp your 4 months old Neo! Any updates on them when you returned from your break?

Here are mine. I lost more, partly due to underwatering and neglect.. But most look good for the most part.

Benard - Things didn't go that well for my seedlings while I was gone. Two small pots were knocked over at my office and I'm able to save maybe three seedlings from those.

I think my coworker was too worried her window was too bright and she moved my seedlings under a very dim CFL lamp instead. They became etoliated, but should recover just fine under better light.

Here are my Neohenricia seedlings, now at 5 months:

Here are my Lithops seedlings, now at 2 months and combined into a single pot:

And lastly, here are my Titanopsis seedlings, now at 3 months:

The other four pots with seeds I had let dry out. In a week or so, I will try to germinate them again.

Kevin, I heard. I'm sorry about the knocked over seedlings.. Were they the Lithops or PseudoLithops?

Your other seedlings are looking great!