I ordered a selection of 20 semps via amazon and they just turned up to the office. All plants look very healthy and overall I am very pleased. This is my first venture into purchasing plants online, so glad I did.

What do ya'll think?

Overview:



Close ups:












If any of you are interested here is the company based in the UK:

Oh, forgot to say. There's supposed to be a card somewhere in the package detailing what each semp is, i'll check this when I get home. For bonus points does anyone care to guess all 20?

Not me, I'm mostly a Noid person. But I have to say this newly arrived collection looks picture perfect...Enjoy!

As long as you got healthy plants, and a variety, I don't see how you could possibly go wrong. If fact I suspect that when a grower puts together a collection they tend to do a better job than I would personally do endlessly agonizing over hundreds of cultivars.

Those look perfect.

What a great connection! They all look very healthy too.

Here is the cultivar list:

1. Oddity
2. Virgil
3. Pacific Hep
4. Merlin
5. Corsair
6. Olivia
7. Rubin
8. Starshine
9. Silberspitz
10. Alpina
11. Lively Bug
12. Arachneideum
13. Kramers Spinrad
14. Carmen
15. Sioux
16. Triste
17. Opera
18. Perinese
19. Silverline
20. Bronco

Some of these may have spelling mistakes as they were written by the seller.

David,

That's a good mix!

I'm assuming 18 should be 'Pekinese' and 19 should be 'Silverine'. Somewhere the original name of this plant was corrupted but it should be 'Silverine'. It's the basis of one of my breeding lines!

Now you have the material to start crossing!

Kevin

Great selection there David . Don't forget to add them to the"plant list" on your profile page

What a terrific variety of colors and textures! That's great that you got the botanical names! Post again when you get them planted.

Very nice collection David. Now to see what you come up with in crossing some of them.

valleylynn said:Very nice collection David. Now to see what you come up with in crossing some of them.

What does crossing mean?

Haven't you heard about the birds and the bees Dave ? Crossing is the process of pollinating semps in a controlled manner , taking pollen from one variety and adding it to another selected variety . This is normally done by the bees in a haphazard way .
The resultant seed is harvested and sown the following spring . Sometimes an exciting new variety will emerge from the seedlings . There's lots of information on this forum about the whole process if only I could find the links !

Yes, Paddy is correct. It is the process of pollinating the blooming semps with pollen from another semp, in the hopes of coming up with some new and exciting from the seedling.

Padddy - i did some investigation into cross pollinating. I get the feeling this is for the advanced class haha, maybe that's my project for next summer?

Here are my 20 semps split across three separate containers. I got home from the garden centre and realised i don't have plant labels. For now i've done a map and a key and i'll mark up when my labels arrive next week.

I got this container today especially for my semps. I've used John Innes No 1 and made sure that there is a good gravel covering above the compost to avoid residual moisture damaging leaves which happened on my first container (always learning!).







I got also got this modern looking square container. The wife advised it would look a bit baron with just semps so i added the spray painted, yes that's right spray painted Calluna.

Well, spray painted, it sure makes for a nice color statement in that container David. I never would have thought of spray painting a heather plant. I wonder what they use for the paint?
They all look great.

I like the rocks incorporated into the container of semps and it looks well done. Semps look happy. That modern container of semps is definitely a different look. Good advice from your wife.