We are in the first week of Spring here so all sorts of ideas popping up in my head In theory all my project ideas seem good to me but I need to be kept in check

Let me know if you think if any of my project seem to be overly enthusiastic and I need to calm down a little

Project 1: Collect all the species and Cultivars available in Australia

This is a long term goal not something that can be done in a short time. I am at around 150 cultivar range after around 7 years of collecting with a couple of unfocused years in there. My assumption is that there are less than 250 cultivars available in Australia. With the Australian biosecurity regulations being what they are, I do not anticipate more than a dozen or so new cultivars being imported by nurseries every year. Which makes this Project somewhat possible.
Project 1B: Grow each cultivar in two significantly different microclimates in the garden; totally exposed to the elements and semiprotected from the elements


Part of the exposed location


Part of the protected location beside a hedge. Excuse the dragon, it appears to be also doing some protecting My wife got into fairy gardening a bit

Project 1C: Take regular photos of each cultivar to document the seasonal changes, including patches from both locations.


Project 2: Start experimenting with the idea of hybridising

Having read Kevin's book sealed the deal to give it a go.
Phase 1: Collect self pollinated seeds ASAP to experiment and figure out seed handling, germination, seedling growing protocols that works for me. Also exploring the possibility of germinating seeds indoors in our fishroom (I know I have too many hobbies )

The fishroom is kept at around 25-26C (77-79F) with around 70% humidity. The racks are equipped with LED lights specially designed to grow aquatic plants underwater.
Would be interesting to see if the lights are good enough to prevent seedling from etiolating. I currently grow and propagate some Tropical plants in the fishroom; the Sempervivums are obviously not but, seeing if I can make the most of winter months would be interesting.

Phase 2: Practice hybridising
And hope for the best lol

Project 3: Once the collection seasonal growth/colour photography progress a bit, to start comparing and confirming the cultivar identifications in Australia are as they are in the rest of the world and plants have not been erroneously labelled by nurseries. Main aim to have an accurately labelled collection not to try to correct the nurseries.

Anyway all of that should keep me off the streets for the foreseeable future

Cheers,
Serkan

Serkan,

I would be more inclined to pick out the BEST ones rather than collect all, some of which are already superseded by newer cultivars. The quarantine procedures are so draconian in Australia I know getting in new plants will be tough. Here in the US, a lot of us have thrown away older cultivars but we are especially spoiled in having such good selections and active hybridizing.

The bee pollinated ones will be open pollinated not selfed. In fact the anthers and stigmas mature at different times so you often get cross pollination if any other semps are blooming close by.

A couple of the German breeders use elaborate setups like you describe but I find just old pots and beds are all you need. My plants are good-sized in just one growing season.

LIKE YOUR ENTHUSIASM and love your beds.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Really appreciate your input. Some of my enthusiasm comes from seeing an amazing cultivar either in US or Europe and having no way of ever be able to get it imported here to Australia. The quarantine procedures and costs are prohibitive to do on a small scale import, plus many of the harsh chemicals used in pest and disease management/prevention mean there is a chance that the plants might not even make it out of the quarantine greenhouses alive.

I agree that I should have a more focused collection, though currently I don't think I have the knowledge to make an informed decision on which cultivars might be the best ones. So I thought as part of my education I will try to collect all available ones here, watch and document their growth and habit first. Maybe after a 12-24 month period to make the assessment to see whether to keep that cultivar in the collection or not. I was going to keep them all but now you convinced me to cull. Besides my wife was never keen on the idea to 'collect them all' anyway

An example is this cultivar I acquired as 'Garielle' which I assume is a typo of 'Gabrielle'. The colours I manage to get are better than good number of the photos I have seen of this cultivar, so it makes me think I need to be able to see and grow the cultivars available to see if they are worth keeping.


Garielle/Gabrielle top photo under torch light at night, bottom photo in sunlight

This is the bed where I am growing majority of the cultivars side by side to be able to observe them and compare. We are calling this area our Sempervivum Library I told Chris about this garden we were planning back in 2017 but only managed to finish it in the last month or so. Better late than never


The whole Semp Library have 18 sections


This is how each section looks. Some sections are a bit longer or shorter and accomodate more or fewer plants. I use Chris's labels which we like the look of in the garden and pots

Really appreciating the guidance
Serkan

It's perfectly reasonable to get the ones you get and keep the ones you like, including a few of them that do so well and refuse to die, no matter what you experiment with growing condition wise--
( that's my collection strategy, anyway)

Holy Fish Room!

That is an incredible fish room!

Wow, what kind of fish?

lol thank you all.

I keep and breed mostly Killifish and South American catfish from genus Corydoras