This is absolutely fantastic. I only have green ones, but hoping to find some gems amongst some seeds I brought. were these grown by seed?

Pia.
I just love your avatar. Really interesting.
Thank you for the kind words on my S. 'Urmina'. It is such a fun sempervivum.

Seeds can produce some really amazing and interesting semps in a years time. Would love to see what you get from your seeds. We would all love to see photos. You can post them here The thread "How to grow Semps" in Sempervivum forum

All of my semps are produced from offsets from named varieties. That is the only way to get the same plant as the parent plant. You have some amazing nurseries in the U.K. that have huge selections of name sempervivum. Have you been to their web sites?
http://www.fernwood-nursery.co...

Can't wait to see what you might get from Fernwood Nursery.

Beautiful! Really basic question, but do you get the best color when the temps are cooler? All my semps seem to look the same, though I know when I bought them some were distinctly different!

Hi Kelly. You should see your best color in your semps at the end of winter, before your very warms spring starts up. Your warmer temps come so much earlier than mine do here in the Pacific Northwest, Willamette Valley. Spring comes later and temps are much cooler than yours. Night time temps are much cooler here also. In the midst of our hottest part of summer the evening temps will still be in the mid to upper 60's.
I have a very long period of what I call the intense spring colors in my semps.

It would be very interesting if you could start keeping a record (photo and written) of the changes in your semps. This would be such a big help to others that live in your area. What are your winter temps like?
What a gorgeous close up of the butterfly in your avatar.

Thanks Lynn, maybe I'll do that. I'm exploring various ideas of how to best display them. At the moment they're in a strawberry pot and not doing too well (soil washes away in a bad pattern when it gets watered, not sure how folks use those things, I'm not impressed) Saw a cool display at Disney in the spring where they made a stacked wall of cinder blocks and used the openings for succulents. Might do that, or look for something similar on a smaller scale to try.

We get a few days with snow, occasionally a week or two below freezing. This past winter no snow or freezing, but that was unusual. The winter before we had a week where the snow didn't melt and the kids were out of school the entire week (not good at dealing with snow/ice here).

I'm actually in Whistler at the moment... loving the cool temps and not looking forward to heading home! Hoping to talk the family into a quick trip to Van Dusen Botanical Garden tomorrow on the way home!

What a treat that would be to visit Van Dusen Botanical Garden. If you get to go, please take lots of photos to share with all of us.
Would love to see photos of your semp plantings.
The only strawberry pots I've had success with are the ones with pocket edges that are the same height as the top of the hole in the side of the pot.
Both sedum and semps do well in them. But I do believe it is easier to grow semps in regular pots. We have many semp collectors that grow them exclusively in pots.

[...thank you Valleylynn and thank you for your lovely welcome to this lovely community, I will keep you posted with my Semp seedlings! I didn't even know they had nurseries in the U.K. I don't get out much.. I will definitely go and have a look on that website now though... I got Semp fever.] :D x

[...heres my curent 21 seedlings.]

That's a beautiful pot Lynn! I'll have to try some sedums in mine, maybe they'd look better than the semps. I was reading the article on making your own hypertuffa pots... they look like they could be fun options too!

Pia I look forward to seeing what you find to buy at Fernwood Nursery. We love seeing the European varieties that we can get here. And how wonderful for all of us that you got Semp Fever. You are in good company.

Kelly, I'm not very good at growing semps in containers. There are many here that have great success with container growing their semps, just not me. Now your idea about the cinder blocks might work really well for semps, the blocks would allow them to grow nice long roots. That would make them healthy and happy. Just be sure you put something like gravel down where you set the blocks, so the soil in the block can drain well. I really like that idea. Hmmmm, might have to give that a try. : )
The sedum are very easy in containers, depending on which sedum you use.
Please take photos so we can see what you decided to grow in the pot. The sedum will love it.

Here are a couple of examples. What we saw was more a freestanding wall about waist high, tapered down at either end. I can't figure out where to put it or it would be built already! Even got the wire mesh to put in the bottom of the holes to hold the soil...
http://www.penick.net/digging/...
http://www.pottedstore.com/pos...

Kelly that is so cool, I love it.
Wish Dancing Oaks Nursery had photos on their website of what they did with cinder block and other cement and terracotta type tiles. They are so creative.
I sure look forward to seeing what you came up with.

[...Kelly, your plants look fabulous ! :hearts:]

Oh Pia those aren't mine, but thanks I wish! They're just links of some cinder block walls I'm considering. Like the way they work for succulents!

Yes, but you will have some soon.