Tomohiro Asano
Osaka, Japan
Humid subtropical — hot wet summers, mild winters
20 years cultivating Lithops and Conophytum. Specializes in seed-grown cultivars and in protecting plants through long humid summers.
About
Lithops are not easy plants in Osaka. Summers are long, wet, and warm at night — the precise opposite of habitat conditions. Everything I've learned about substrate and ventilation came from losing plants and asking why.
My focus is propagation by seed, especially of the L. optica and L. helmutii groups, and the surprising number of named cultivars that descend from a handful of original collections. I review profiles where Japanese collection naming overlaps with Western horticulture.