Let us see how everyone manages to protect their sempervivum from overly harsh weather conditions, like intense sun, excessive rain, or drying wind during hot or cold weather.

We were having temps in the high 90's into triple digits. Most of these semps were established enough to handle it, with some evening watering. But I did have some new offsets planted in the bed that just wouldn't have made it without some protection.
We use PVC pipe as a frame with shade cloth over the frame. That did the trick for the 'not yet established' semps. You could use old sheets also. What I liked about the shade cloth is that when I set the rainbird sprinkler going, the water would mist through the shade cloth. This frame covers two beds.

Similarly, I drive 6' EMT (electrical conduit) a foot or so into the ground and span the ends with black plastic water pipe. It's a bit more rugged than plastic pipe and can be used with whatever you have at hand for shade. Large spring clamps work well to hold your shading material in place.

Alternatively, if you have individual pots to protect, cut the bottom off of a larger & taller-sized pot and place over the one you want to protect. The bottom off will allow a couple of hours of sun in, but shade the rest of the time.

Great ideas Kate.

If I want to shade an individual semp I cut a cheap 1 gallon pot in half and use it to shade it. I can shade for most of the day or adjust it further back from the plant to just shade it from the mid day sun.
Here is Princess Rose shaded in 2011 and again today in full sun.

Great photo tabby. That would work very well for single plants. I will give that idea a try.

TABBY, LOVE THAT IDEA. Maybe if we ever have a normal southern summer this will really help.I have lots of those pots.My in-laws have a job inspecting house's being built for a bank and find these pots left after the landscaping is finished.They bring them to me.They where also handy last winter to protect plants from frost & freezing.

I have had to just remove semp's from beds & bring them inside.After 3 days of hard non-stop rains,i found my semp's molded & rotting.I hope they will make it.This just happened recently,i had to remove a lot of the plants leaves,bring them inside & i have put them in dry vermiculite.I'm not sure what to do with them or how long to keep them in the vermiculite or when to move them to some soil? ANY ADVICE???


This is only 2 i have a picture of,i have a good bit more in the house.

You did the right thing, except I would have left them in the garage, with plenty of air circulation. They can be left alone for quite some time before transplanting.

I'll get the hubby on building that garage!!! He said he'd add it to his to do list of things i WANT:building me a potting house with electricity & plumbing, i don't think that's all that much to ask for!!As well as build racks for my plants,building something for my hanging baskets to hang from, because every year they double in size(his words ) I have propagated so many christmas cactus he said sale them or just give them away.And all thats inside the house,also somewhere for me to keep fertilizer,bug sprays,all the other tons of stuff i keep that he thinks is junk,flower pots & hangers,from pea gravel to huge rocks (the rocks were hand picked by me & picked up by the hubby)thats how he remembers it "i didn't let him get any fishing done because i kept making him get off the boat to get big rocks etc... I told him yall said he sounds like a teenager. I think he's wearing out the fishing trip from last Sept.
Now the lake is the fullest it's been in something like 5 or 6 years,no rocks for me.We went fishing a couple weekends ago & i was 6 fish ahead of him i stopped fishing to let him catch up.He thinks i knocked over the bait & was busy catching it & putting it back. If only men knew the things we do for their ego's!! Enough picking on the dear dear hubby!!

Seriously,i put the semps i pulled up outside to dry up when the sun comes out and then dart out side whenever a storm rolls in.Should they be in dry vermiculite,won't it pull moisture out of them.How long before i can put them in soil? I still have some i haven't put into any potting mix,do i let them dry out & continue to remove all mushy leaves before putting in any potting mix?

I just don't want to loose these.I feel so bad I lost the fuzzy one BEV, I am keeping on top of the beautiful pink one,i have already brought it in & removed all offsets.here is the last picture of it before i pulled it up & the other picture just a few days later is when i pulled it up..Actually there's 5 days between pictures.

Crying for you Jelinda. But you caught them in plenty of time to save them.
You don't need the vermiculite. Just place them in an area with plenty of air circulation, on dry paper towels. That will leave the roots and all other parts exposed to the drying air.

Yes, Lynn is giving good advice. I leave pulled out semps laying on top of tables or trays for days and weeks on end. They don't need anything except the air circulation and will just be fine until you can get to them to plant somewhere.

Thank yall so much!!!
Bev,your a super person!! I feel so bad about the ones i lost that came from you & your well just an angel.

Sorry about the long long winded post try imagining the combination of me (southern born long winded),hubby (male),grands (3),non-stop rain for a month,following Dr.'s orders because my arms & hands,legs & feet locked up like a motor on a car.I couldn't move them at all.Watching the rain praying my plants didn't drown, couldn't even show the respect to pray on my knee's. By the time i got better i had cabin fever,grandkid fever,hubby fever,and was having ATP withdraw's come on that was funny.

I managed to get a couple plants re-potted finally yesterday.Check the sedum forum for a re-potting that was a project for me.I finished it yesterday,it stormed yesterday morning & the sun came out the rest of the day,of course i woke up about midnight to a very bad thunder storm & no electricity.BUT I GOT SOMETHING DONE

jojoe said: By the time i got better i had cabin fever,grandkid fever,hubby fever,and was having ATP withdraw's come on that was funny.

Jelinda you have such a wonderful sense of humor.

jojoe said:
I managed to get a couple plants re-potted finally yesterday.Check the sedum forum for a re-potting that was a project for me.I finished it yesterday,it stormed yesterday morning & the sun came out the rest of the day,of course i woke up about midnight to a very bad thunder storm & no electricity.BUT I GOT SOMETHING DONE

Wahoo, way to go Jelinda. Going to look at your completed project.

Saw the 10 day weather forecast and the Semps are protesting!

Rain is scheduled every single day!!!

So tonight we are covering them all with huge clear plastic bags.

You can see very well the stress they are under by the yellowing of their outermost leaves.

No more moisture. Time to put a stop to it!!

Oh Janice. How stressful that must be for you. At least you have a way to protect them. It's the rain and heat that can really get to them.

I'm need to get the metal tubing for my new beds so I can put up the shade cloth. We are in for some very hot/dry weather, which poses a different problem for all then newly planted semps. They dehydrate and burn from the intense sun. If I water them they steam cook in full sun. The last time I used the shade cloth we had temps in the 90's up to 101°F. Very dry.
We put the shade cloth up and misted the plants with an overhead sprinkler. It was amazing how cool it was under the shade cloth. It allowed a very fine mist to come through the shade cloth giving the new semps much needed water, without steam cooking them.

Shade cloth sounds great!

What we do for those little guys, huh?

That's for sure.

Would covering my semps in the rock garden work for me? I don't know who all remembers when i started making it a year ago.It's on a piece of ground that's a good slope.I added a lot of compost,rock etc...then there's rock on top.I have semp's on 1 side & sedum on the other with some sedum kinda mixed in a few places.

I thought you might could see the slope i started with then worked the ground & leveled it out some.

Here's progress so far with weeds,sweet gum saplings.Of course that long root where the lil saplings are coming from is our bed rootLynn,after it's name sake.My hubby really likes Miss Lynn for saving him the back breaking job of chopping that root out of my bed (that's another story)

The point being the ground is already saturated and would i benefit from covering because the water would still run through my bed from top to bottom,just wouldn't fall directly on it right??
limelight

'blue spruce' & 'angelina'

These sedums really seem to be holding their own in the flooding rains.

Yes, I believe it will help.

I would say any moisture you can keep off them at this point will help them out.

You do want some air circulation under the plastic, so if you
cut bamboo stakes to hold up the plastic.... like a tent

2 winters ago, I had to do this, when we had excessive moisture with no drying out and it worked perfectly.

I would say with your humidity being so high in the south, that a cover would need to be raised at least a foot or two from the top of the plants. You want lots of air flow in your growing conditions.
Also, since it is on a slope, watch the plants, they will tell you if they are getting to much water. From what I can see those semps are looking pretty healthy, and sedum can handle more water than semps.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Yeah, isn't the slope supposed to be helping with moving the water away from the plants. It's the plants (if any) at the bottom of the slopes that may be endangered. I thought that's why you planted on the slope (smart move!!)