I'm going through a bit of a rough patch lately. Lost a few plants to drainage problems and now my Unicorn is in her days. Lost her chicks to the chipmunks last summer. I am so bummed!
And, of course, the rain continues. I hope I have the drainage issue fixed!

Here's an image of Unicorn. i assume the small shoots I see mid way up, are going to be flower stalks.

so can you snip it off and not let it flower, maybe then it would make more chicks? I had one do that too and then it died of course. But only had one.
It has been raining here still too. LOTS of rain. EVERYDAY,
who am I kidding, it's more like every HOUR!

That works!?
I would love to have a chic or two before she leaves her earthly bonds.
How long can I keep a plant going if I cut the flower stalk off?
If this works, it'll make my day!

Go for it Terri! It's worked for me.

Here's the bloom starting (just a little further along than yours, but you can cut now):


Here's after the cut that I made at stem where I thought the bloom started from and you can see offsets coming in almost a month later:


This is almost 2 months later:


I separated the offsets from main stem when they got to be a decent size and let them callous and then planted into soil. Mother hen died later.

Sorry to hear of your impending loss Terri . I'm in the same boat with my only Tristesse semp bought this spring .


On a positive note my Gold marie bought at the same time has four babies

Thanks, Bev. I feel a little better about cutting it now. I wonder if I could cut it after it flowers? Dyin to try my hand at germinating seeds!

Paddy, I also have one I just bought going to flower. I bought a very small clump of Jelly Bean from a private collector so, I have a few chicks at least.

Terri, if you have several of the same that are blooming, do cut one before flowering and one after and see what happens. I used to throw my semps away that started to form flower stalks and now I try to catch the formation early so that I can lop the top part off to encourage offsets.

It is better to cut the bloom stalk off as soon as you can. Your chances forcing offset production are much less if you let it actually go to bloom, as the rosette starts dying when the blooming begins.

Oh, ok. Thank you all. I may just let Unicorn continue the flowering process. It looks like 2 chicks are emerging down at the bottom of the plant.
I hope they're chicks and not additional flower stalks.

So, if I see a stalk developing, I can go ahead and lop that puppy off, right? That'll encourage the plant to make at least another chick or two?
Whew, makes me nervous taking a knife to a semp!

Teri, I just looked at your first photo again and noticed that you mention some "stalks" midway up the rosette...I think those may be offsets. The flower stalk on semps emerge in the form of coning of the middle of the rosette. Note that Paddy's flower heads are emerging from the center of the rosette head.

Here's a photo of 'Oley' that seems to be changing in shape (may be "coning") and separating from the bottom leaves. I will be watching to see if when I separate gently the center most leaves of the head with my fingers, if there will be the flower buds waiting to emerge as the stalk gets longer. I will keep in eye on this one to see if I need to lop it.

Update to my post regarding possible spiking of Oley rosette. Does look like the spike is longer today so I decided to cut the spike stalk at its base at the center of the rosette. Will see if offsets appear at some time in the future.

The elongating spike


and spike lopped off:

I did one of mine last week Bev, it was an only rosette. Hope yours cooperates and produces offsets for you.

Which semp rosette was that? Good luck on that one done last week!

I have to go out and look, I forgot the name.

I will have to work up the nerve to take that action!

Terri thank you so much for bringing this thread back to life. I forgot all about Bev's question on which semp it was. So I went out this morning and took a photo of it. And it worked, it is making offsets.
S. 'Piliferum'


And they look like they will remain normal offsets. Keeping fingers crossed.

How encouraging is that, you all?

I know I am excited, that was my only rosette left after moving it late last fall. Silly me.

Thanks for the "moving" lesson though!

Yes, by all means don't forget my experience with moving semps in late fall.