Planting Sempervivum tectorum (and More)

This morning I started an experiment… clipping leaves (“lobes” might be a better term for these things) from a healthy, indoor Sempervivum tectorum. What’s that, you ask? The common name is Hens and Chicks.

A couple of weeks ago I bought an on-sale strawberry pot full of Sempervivum tectorum and I have it growing on a little table on the front porch. It’s doing QUITE WELL there! A couple of days ago I uprooted a 3 foot square patch of Snow on the Mountain from a spot in my front flower beds (outside out southeast bedroom window), and that left a big bare patch of soil to be dealt with.

Today I clipped some vertical growth from the Sempervivum tectorum, stripped about two dozen of the “lobes” from the bottoms, and transplanted the “stems” into an indoor pot where I’m also trying to root some Jade plants. That left me with a handful of detached “lobes” so I got out my cultivator, chewed up the bare spot left from the Snow on the Mountain, scattered the detached lobes there, and covered them gently with a little garden soil. I have no idea if these might produce new plants… we shall see.

Since I had the cultivator out I also roughed up some spots where I’m having trougle getting grass to grow, and I’ll be watering those spots for the coming week just as I have been watering the Snow on the Mountain which was transplated to an area near STC Elementary where there’s an Ian memorial rock and bench. There’s no longer a tree at that memorial location, the previous one died so we had it cut down. Our hope is to plant a new tree this Fall.

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location: Toledo, IA