Thanks for the heads up, Michael.
Scratch that one, Kevin!

Your new rollers are looking very happy Tim.
Your 'from Smeryouka' looks like it really needed to move outdoors. Bet it will look very different in a couple of weeks. Still looks strong though.

Kevin, Sharon said you should name it 'Purplicious'.

I like that!

I like Sharon's suggestion!

Of course I have lots of big semp purples, some 8+ " that might fit there too.

OK time to hit the showers and go to an iris meeting!

Kevin

Well here is one of those really big rollers Tim was talking about. It's one I got from Perennial Obsessions a couple years ago. Very prolific, and the leaves are rather thick. I should go back out and measure this one, it will get even larger as the season progresses.
'Wintergraben'

I think the globiferum subsp. allionii and the Mecsek Mts. varieties were pretty impressive too. There was a yellow with red tips one with a golf ball sized rosette sitting on top. It gave me a case of roller envy. Today I took my bent-nosed needle-nose pliers and thinned out a couple of my roller patches... hoping to give the remaining ones more room to expand.

Nice Lynn!

Looking at some of these tightly-balled rollers makes me wonder something. Do they photosynthesize equally on both sides of the leaf? The other semps make me wonder the same thing. Agaves and Echeverias too.

Great question Tim. Let's see what Kevin has to say. @JungleShadows

Greg how are your rollers doing?

Lynn mine are doing ok, they're at a stage where I need to clean up the beds, several years old and all growing into one another but this is better than weak and sad huh

It sure is Greg. We love it when they are happy and healthy.

I've had a few of mine for 3 and 4 years so they are just now getting that cool size... The babies growing up!
Tim I do love how tight these can get in poor weather and then in the warmth they relax out and open up its cute!

Tim,

Yes some of these have photosynthetic parenchyma on both sides of the leaves. The ones from subspecies hirta have the most wde-open rosettes whereas the ones from arenaria are mostly a ball.

Of course all of them fix CO2 by the CAM pathway so they accumulate malic acid at night and then utilize the carbon during the day when they can utilize the energy from the light reactions.

The rollers do not like my native soil that well but they LOVE the soil mix that I use in the raised beds.

Kevin

Thank you for the information Kevin. I love these learning seasons. Adding this one to the special thread.

My rollers love the sandy loam mixture I use in the beds. I think that is part of the reason the mature rosettes get so big.
Tim's should do the same, as his native soil is a sandy loam I think?

valleylynn said:Thank you for the information Kevin. I love these learning seasons. Adding this one to the special thread.

My rollers love the sandy loam mixture I use in the beds. I think that is part of the reason the mature rosettes get so big.
Tim's should do the same, as his native soil is a sandy loam I think?

I think my rollers will size up slowly but surely. They were all such tiny little guys when I put them in last year. Their growth has been modest but reasonable since then. My soil is a sandy loam or a silty loam, depending on who you talk to. The more I grow semps the more I think this soil is excellent for semp culture, if not necessarily for accelerated growth. It has an excellent mineral cross section across the board with the notable exception of Calcium which I tend to add liberally. Good thing it's cheap.

Here's 'Connie' after I thinned her out a bit. I don't think they should be packed together too tightly.