I'm very curious about this topic as well! It'll be my first winter with Lithops and an adventure I'm sure.

My plan is to keep them looking a little more dehydrated than normal throughout the winter. With my growing conditions, no water would surely mean death.

Not sure if it's just me, but it looks like my Lithops need quite a bit less water since the end of August.

Hello everyone,

Winter
growing means that new pair of leaves is growing inside and they consume previous
year leaves. Those old leaves should be let to shrivel and shrink to nothing,
while new pair of leaves grow healthy and plump. During that period NO WATER
should be given, unless the new leaves look wrinkled (a light sprinkle of water
should suffice to regain firm composition). So basically no watering from late autumn
till mostly late spring - until old leaves fully shrivels.

Best,

Erika

Thanks everyone for your advice! I went to the library yesterday and found a fairly good book on Mesembs/Succulents indicating where certain species live, when they get rainfall/fog and how much. The major difference is their growing season- summer or winter. The other thing is growers in CA are growing their lithops completely different than growers in the UK/N Europe (for obvious reasons). My understanding is that growers in CA can mimic their natural growing environment, due to fantastic light year round and fairly warm temps. With the UK/N. European growers many seem to push for winter dormancy regardless due to cooler temps and lack of light.

There is no clear cut answer, which complicates it further :/. Will have to spend a bit more time doing research on the types Im interested in growing and seeing how I can get them to do well in my environment.

Which book did you borrow from the library?

I was originally looking for S. Hammer's book, but nothing anywhere. Ended up picking up

The Timber Press Guide to Succulent Plants of the World

and

Cacti and Succulents for Cold Climates

Minty - I stalk this forum member for a lot of his insights and experiences on growing mesmebs. He is one of the first I've seen that actually grew his living stones out in the cold, there was even a picture he had taken with them covered in snow, and they FLOWERED!

He is based in the Long Island Ny, so the climates pretty similar to yours.

Hope this helps.

I never took you as a stalker Bernard, lol.... but I'll definitely dig through their posts and see what has worked for them. Its just two completely schools of thought- the SW and West coast growers are growing one way, and growers from from the NE/UK/etc are doing it completely different. My friends/family say I always look for ways to make my life more difficult, this is further evidence of that :/ ...

Thanks so much Bernard :)

Lithops are by no means frost resistant or tolerant of any frost conditions I guess Bernard has to lurk a certain person for different information as it's very very difficult to inform the ' full sun' ' full heat' ' little water' fanatics of the forum C&S 'normal's' that some succulents can and will do much much better during full sun cooler conditions and is easier to provide optimal health & growing.

Understanding that cooler air often carries more moisture with it and knowing that cooler water last longer than warmer waters would be a reason whysome wouldn't need to water certain succulents at certain times of the year .

cooler is easier heat only burns