Sunday 16 June 2013

Sempervivum Sunday

There are quite a few of these dotted around the garden, all neatly in pots waiting for the alpine areas and  I thought it would help keep track to select one each Sunday.  Quite a few were left at the old house, so not sure exactly how many there are, but enough to keep the series going over the summer and into autumn. This is a strange time of year for them, most are well into growth, but still have some of their winter colour. Then you have the ones that are starting to flower.  Given the plant dies afterwards, flowers are a mixed blessing.  In an ideal world, the next generation take over, growing to fill the gaps, and offsetting ready for when they flower in following years.


Sadly sometimes offsets struggle to keep up with the gaps left from the previous generation. A couple of years ago this pot was almost full, the wet summers and lots of flowers has left it looking rather sorry for itself.


Then in the worst case, you get a mass flower where all generations seem to flower at the same time. It is tough to enjoy the flower when you know it is going to decimate the display and you will be left with minimal plants afterwards.


I'll start with the first plant next Sunday, it will give me time to select the first subject and dig out records on how it has done.  

4 comments:

  1. This is very exciting and I look forward to your posts. I'm horrible at remembering which sempervivum is which and will enjoy learning a little more about them all.

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    1. It can be tough to remember which is which. There are so many it will be interesting to see how many of the UK ones have made it to US.

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  2. Nice displays in the large pots. Most of my semps are in small pots or directly in the ground. I have a few in larger pots but the pots are plastic and used mainly for a few select cultivars. Since I grow semps primarily for the plant colors and forms, I really don't like it when they flower. I usually remove the flowering plant relatively quickly, and transplant the offsets to their own pots. I often sell excess plants at our local (Washington, D.C.) C&S society and by far the most popular are the cobweb (arachnoidia) types and the mutation types such as S. Oddity.
    I do try and keep track of cultivar names but there are quite a few that look very much alike. I've recently been trying to sort out S. 'Poke Eat" and S. 'Pilosella' which look just the same to me. Happy Semp Growing.

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    1. Does removing the flower early mean the offsets are set back less? I hadn't though that it may be the case. Cobwebs are common here as is Oddity, although you rarely see it outside of the alpine nurseries. Will be interesting to see if the varieties I grow are known to the Us growers.

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