hi!! about 2 months ago, i got a sempervium and he was holding up well, he stretched out due to a lack of light but i moved him into the sun from my window after about a week of having him, also cutting his elongated stem to allow normal,healthy growth. he is currently sitting at my window daily and i water him once a week. i re potted him around a month and a half ago since the pot we bought him in was being outgrown, so i gave him a larger space to grow! unfortunately at the moment hes not looking too good, his rosettes are growing more but any offsets that sprouted earlier in the months have died. i recently had to remove a TON of dead plant material from him (lower leaves that had died etc). im really worried about losing him, but i have 2 other semps and other succulents growing in a planter that i got a week ago, im hoping that maybe i can plant some of those in this pot once they grow some offsets, or maybe ill use some leaves from one of them, (im also wondering if i can use one from my current semp, since some parts seem healthy?) please if there is any way to save this guy, let me know..

EXTRA INFO:
my soil drains quickly, and i know to water once the soil has almost or fully drained
my plants get a good amount of sun, about 5-8 hours of the suns cycle a day, but its getting much less sunny since i live in the UK and the sun is NOT reliable
if you have advice for my other four plants, let me know, image below of the planter im raising them in until they get bigger and stronger and then ill move them probably to my garden

@valleylynn

FWIW, I have semps growing directly on rocks and the only water they ever get is when it rains, Sometimes in summer it will be a month between rains here in MI, yet they soldier on. They are VERY easy to over-water.

Once a semp bolts (starts the bloom to seed cycle), you can stop the bolting if you immediately cut the core out if the center of the rosette. Soon after, you'll get new plants from the nodes immediately below the missing core.

This link might be helpful: https://mountaincrestgardens.c...

Semps on rocks and on a board:

Black rock in full sun ^^^




Nickel for size perspective. The 3 larger plants are bolting.

Semps in a hypertufa trough:



The kernel of dry corn offers size perspective. The trough is in full sun (had to move it to full shade to get a decent image) and never gets watered. It's growing in the gritty mix with a very few prills of Osmocote Plus.

Al

jaxd, your plant wasn't stretching from lack of light. You cut off its bloom stock, the only one it will ever make. The pups grow on the ends of little strings but they have to root before the mother plant dies. I imagine your old pot didn't have room for them to root and without nourishment from the older plant, they couldn't sustain themselves.

Sempervivums are monocarpic. That means they grow, bloom and die. But, the rosettes growing around the 'skirt' take over and the plant grows. I'm not sure why anyone would core a semp. The plant will die after it blooms whether it sets seeds or not. The plant will die after the bloom stock is initiated, there's no stopping a monocarpic plant from doing its thing.

Put your plants outside in shallow bowls (or on flat rocks- I've never tried this but I'm going to). Don't bother to water unless you have a heatwave. I water mine about once a week in summer but its also 110 degrees F out there.

All that said, the reason Tapla's semps are doing well is that they are outside. Semps are not house plants - they need cold temperatures to do well. Put them outside.

Hi Jax,
So nice to meet you, welcome to NGA. I see you already received some very good advice on growing semps.

Lucy is correct, semps don't like living indoors. You can place them outside, gradually increasing the amount of sun they get. In the UK they should grow well in full sun. If I am right, you get summer rain and overcast skies in the summer? Seems like you would rarely have to water in those conditions?
Al gave a good explanation on how it works. Too much water for newly planted semps can cause trouble with growing new roots, can stress the plant so that things can start shutting down, and the plant dies.
Al is also correct about cutting the center out of a blooming rosette. The best results come from cutting the center out early in the process. Yours might still produce offsets. Some of them might bloom, hopefully some will be normal and grow to maturity.

Here is a planting using some of Al's method. Akadama mixed with gravel, sand and a small amount of compost. It has been in this shallow bowl for 5 years.


Al, it is good to see you.

But what do you gain by coring a sempervivum? They grow lots of offsets just letting them do their own thing. I don't see where the advantage is as coring it will be the end of the plant anyway.

Lucy, when a rosette start coning it is going to bloom. If it has not already put out new offsets before it started coning it will not, as a rule, produce viable offsets as it goes through it's blooming process. If it does produce offset they will more than likely bloom also. Here is 'Persephone' doing exactly that. It is just beginning to show signs of coning.
June of 2015


This is that same rosette August of 2015.


The sad thing is all of those offsets also bloomed. Many times, if the offsets are not detached from the coning rosette, they will also bloom. Since that event I now sever all offsets from the main rosette if she shows signs of blooming.
The thread "Surgical procedure for a blooming rosette." in Sempervivum forum

hi valleylynn! thank you for your advice how would I cut out the center? I'm not too good at processing instructions, but if you could write it out or link me to a reliable video or article i would appreciate it. or would it be easier to just grow from leaves? I think I might just replant it from some kind of cutting or offset.. it'll give me more chance of trying to save it and failing and losing a whole plant.

Lucy, Al,
I appreciate your advice, it's difficult for me to get the right materials for lots of personal reasons, but I'm willing to do the best I can to look after these guys well, I'm aware that it's best to plant on top of gravel or surfaces to prevent them from sitting on soil, I think I should try to raise and move these as soon as possible to a better place and look for some plants that would be better in my climate, we had a heatwave recently, so I had to water at least once a week and even had to move out of sun for a day or two due to yellowing. I wasn't aware that they die after blooming, I read that they flower yearly and grow forever, I've been trying to increase my research and knowledge on these guys for a week now, I don't have much going for me at the moment so at least this hobby can keep me going.

I guess I should pay closer attention to them. Mine aren't anything special and as long as the little patches increase in size, I'm happy. Thank you for interesting information.

You are going to do fine with them Jax. They won't reproduce from leaf cuttings. They are not like some of the soft succulents that easily produce new plants from the leaves. Just don't keep them indoors. Be sure to have lots of grit/gravel under the leaves. And like Al said, don't over water them.

Lucy, that is pretty much my attitude towards my semps.