At the nursery we end up growing a lot of Sempervivum (hen’s and chicks). While most of the perennials we grow come in as plugs, sempervivum are one of few we do from scratch. It’s as simple as plucking a baby semp off it’s mother plant, and re-potting it in it’s own pot. If you have 10 sempervivum in February you could easily have 100 by fall. In good conditions Sempervivum species thrive and multiply abundantly, for this reason we maintain a small stock of potted sempervivum for propagation use. The photo below is of one of our breeding semps.
As the title suggests, this is one very large sempervivum. I’ve seen some big ones in my time as a gardener but this one takes the cake.
Overfilling this 8″ pot this sempervivum measures up roughly to the size of a dinner plate. It’s really quite something. I would love to put these into mass production. A houseleek at every doorstep!
This post reminds me of a post I did earlier this spring about a very small primula.
One Response to Giant Sempervivum
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I really wonder about the size of the plant in second year. I doubt it will reach this size again. Many times I’ve bought big plants and their diamether resulted by the fact they were growth hoprmeones in the nursery. Pelase let us know about the plant in 2012!