Sol,

'Soul' has been slow for me but it hasn't rotted so far. Its seedlings were OK but not as good as the ones from 'Silver Song' so I haven't used it since. I grew 'Canada Kate' as a kid in MA and it was waxy as well as 'Jolly Green Giant' of Bill Nixon's. I haven't seen them for sale here recently but I'm sure some of our members may have them. Some of the Andinn series are quite waxy although they all sort of look alike here. Still in an outcross they might be interesting. I toyed with the idea of crossing one of them with 'Silver Song' this year but didn't do it.

Paleo, 'Othello' is OK here and it gets pretty big too. Have not used it in crossing.

Kevin

Kevin,
'Canada Kate' was an absolute favorite of mine until I crossed two medium/large blooms of it without a single result. The next year I tried again with a plant from a different source because there was some question as to whether the plants I'd used were actually the true 'Canada Kate', no results on that bloom either and I have come to believe both are the correct plant. Very disappointing for me because 'Canada Kate' has the best fringe cilia of any waxy variety, a feature I had hoped to accentuate and the reason I was so interested in 'Lavender and Old Lace' (which unfortunately enough is also nearly infertile). Next year I may try raising bee seed from those two, but for now I'm starting from scratch. Using some montanum/marmoreums with decent fertility to try and coax out a fringed wulfenii look. They first year's results make me think it will be a two generation process, but we'll see what the 2019's end up looking like.
I do have 'Andinn Lady Midday' it's a nice one, very pink especially this time of year.
'Soul' seemed to have good fertility, but it grew like a rock for me. You gave me a rosette in spring of 2018, it never grew much bigger, nor did it offset, bloomed in the summer of 2019. Perhaps since the rosette was fixing to bloom I'm being to harsh about the plants growth habits, I know they tend to stop offsetting before they bloom, but it had all of fall and part of the spring in 2018 to show me some chicks, but instead I'm left now without a specimen of the cultivar. It was however one of the few plants that gave me results out of hand crosses to 'Thunder', very excited about those seedlings even though I have less than ten of them.
I'll keep my eyes out for 'Jolly Green Giant', that one looks interesting, the picture here looks like sort of a colorless light green with heavy watermarks and some wulfenii heritage, might be useful in toughening up my 'Lilac Time' lines. I noticed it pre-dates all of the for-mentioned silvers except for 'Silverine', no chance you'd know whether Nixon raised it from 'Silverine' seed is there? That might be useful information for me when choosing which lines to try and integrate it into.
-Sol

Hah, well even though your thread turned into a hybridizing discussion, I'll still play

#1-an arachnoideum of some kind is always a favorite, I love them. Hard pressed to pick which one....but if I could only take one to the private mountain top it might be 'Smitt's Seedling' just because

#2-a fuzzy purple (which one? eek, possibly the one that doesn't exist yet--that stays purple longer, but if it doesn't come along, at least one of the few that achieve that look for a while...)

#3-a super neato changeling NOID that I love

and I'm still thinking about my last two choices...

Meanwhile,
Othello is a rock here--always looks good. Sent some to Arkansas...rave reviews from there as well.
Interestingly, Positively Glowing doesn't like our July/August here, it melts. I moved it out of semp hill last year, where it was struggling and put it in two different places, same result. Bummer. I've got two more spots to try and if those don't work for it either, it's fired.

Alright it is interesting to see some opinions on 'Othello', which look positive across the board.

To be honest it is quite a nice plant, pretty big and the more un-compact type it would seem, leaves do not seems to stay that close together compared to other cultivars in the same place but at the same time I was also thinking of throwing it away and felt like somehow it would a spread of fungal for others.

I wonder what could be going on that for 3 years they behaved rather poorly, again no root rot at all, but perpetual external leaf rot.

Actually not to put down any sempervivum master in particular but most of these plants actually come to me like that from them, when I buy them usually they already have piles of dead leaves compacted which I remove. What I mean by that is whatever caused the constant rotting of the external leaves was already present not really introduced by my conditions, maybe only perpetuated further.

Dirt,
I'm glad you gave it a shot, I genuinely thought this thread would generate a heated discussion about the best semp varieties but I guess folks are too bashful to pick favorites. The hybridizing chat with Kevin has been a nice consolation though.
'Smit's Seedling' looks like an interesting variety, big color changes in the pictures I've seen. I'm not a fan of color shifts, but they can be amusing if all of the phases are interesting. My favorite arachnoideum hybrid is 'Rosa Madchen', it stays tough in winter and summer weather, the lightest arachnoideum hybrid I've seen and the only one I have with a pink blush, never looks bad. I think it's only half arachnoideum though because it doesn't form full cobwebs.
Purple velvets are cool! I don't have any named cultivars that fit that description (excluding 'Thunder' which goes purple in the winter) but I do have a handful of purple seedlings, some of those are quite nice.
Hoping you can come up with a couple more

Paleo,
All types of bugs out there, who knows maybe something rode in on your plants when you acquired them. This might be especially likely since no one else has had problems with it. To be fair, we all use different dirt, have slightly if not vastly different light exposures and weather conditions, even just the members from Oregon all grow plants differently and we live in the same state! Every time I mention a plant that doesn't do well in my garden there's someone who claims to have never had a problem with it, inversely I seem to do well with some plants that don't preform for other growers. The discussion is valid regardless, some plants never receive bad reviews, the opposite can also be true which certainly says something.

-Sol

Sol,

'Jolly Green Giant' was a cultivar that was sort of being passed around in the Boston area in the 60's. No one knew exactly what it was and Bill thought it needed a name and bestowed that name on it. At the time it was one of the bigger cultivars on the market. It was also the first that had really prominent watermarks.

Now WHY didn't I use it as a parent back then? It may not have been a heavy bloomer. Anyway there isn't any crosses using it in my old record books.

I do have a purple velvet from 'Greenwich Time' open pollinated. It is the ONE seedling from GT I have ever raised. The seedling bloomed a lot this year and I'm going to plant some of the open pollinated seeds from it. I'm hopeful that a good dark purple velvet will come from it.

Kevin

Kevin,
Interesting info, sounds like a cool one. I'll be on the hunt for it!
-Sol

Really enjoying the posts and the general discussions in this post. Unfortunately 95% of the cultivars mentioned don't exist in Australia

But still super interesting read

Kevin, I hope you get one --then I can pick the five semps to adorn my final marker

I decided for my other two options
#4 is a heuff--likely Bros (that red!)
#5 is a roller--they're such fun and grow dang near anywhere they find themselves. I think the noid I have that gets watermarks might be my favorite, but I really like that big one that came in the semp jerky™ pile, and Geisela Volker is a nice one too,

But, then I decided that I really need twentyfive--I'll take five arachs, five fuzzies, six waxys, five heuffs, three rollers and then a calcareum, hah

I feel your pain Serkan,
I've been drooling over a number of cultivars on Erwin Geiger's website for the last year, alas, most of them have yet to arrive in the united states.

Dirt,
'Bros' does have nice color, I just packaged some seed from it last week.
Since both you and Kevin favor 'Gisela Volker' I may have to look into that one. Rollers are fun, but I've found they make difficult subjects to hybridize, my "row" of rollers is really more like a scattered pool table! The big rosettes are more obviously the original seedlings but I have trouble distinguishing the smaller ones from the offsets that have rolled into their space. The flowers are a bit difficult and without much of a root system to begin with the seedlings tend to shift when first planted. Glad to be growing some though, I'd like to have a line or two.
-Sol

Sol,

Crossing rollers is the worst. They don't like to self especially. I did self 'Gisela Volker' this year as it's the most extreme type. Of course I may get NO SEED too.

I do have a purple roller and a green with red tipped spiky leaves that are quite nice. Am trying to get some fatter ones too.

Dirt, I agree 5 is too little. Sorry 'Positively Glowing' is misbehaving for you. Try it in some shade. Its colors are so bright that it even colors in some shade. Here it is fairly indestructible.

Kevin

Purple roller would be nice

Kevin it's strange--first place I had it had afternoon shade. It and all the semps around it, happy. Then it got hot and all the big rosettes of the PG patch got smushy and died. All the other semps around it, still happy enough. I put the PG offsets, plus replacements sent from dear Melissa, like I said, in two different spots, one with more shade, one with more sun and not exactly the same thing happened, but close. The ones in more shade simultaneously bloomed and melted and their offsets rotted. I still have a couple of small ones there that are alive but they don't look good. The ones in sun, one rosette and all its offsets rotted, the other, right next to it, and all its offsets are doing really well.

Yeah the purple roller is quite good. It's an 'Emerald Spring' kid but has many more leaves and a different shape.

How weird is that about PG. It doesn't rot a leaf here. Odd too as the 'Killer' family sees to make such happy plants. 'Big Six-O' and 'Fashion Diva', its sibs, are very happy too.

The Killer' X 'Jungle Shadows' progeny seem to be more vigorous in some cases though.

Kevin

Paleo Temp, Othello does fine for me too.
Suggestion... dig it up , wash ALL the soil off the roots, Take all the dead leaves off, and submerge it in a bucket of fungicide water mix over night. You will probably have to put a weight on it to hold it under the water. When you take it out of the fungicide water, let it dry before planting back in new soil. Gloves.

Favorites????? Only 5 .......you must be kidding Well here goes
Proud Zelda, Cavo D'oro and Jungle Shadows would be my classic faves at the moment
Love Positively Glowing. Dirt, try putting one in the shade, especially afternoon shade ??
Patent Leather Shoes and Leopold would be dark favorites.
Favorite blue I am working on.....haven't seen it yet
Favorite pink would have to be Lynn's new introduction. I forget the name cause I don't have it yet !
I have a lot of favorite greens but I think the one I like best is my new little super shiny fat leafed chartreuse seedling

Ok so that is 5 categories not 5 varieties and these are probably not the 5 I would pick for breeding. I am pretty sure Cavo D'oro is sterile but I do love the color. I have tried outcrossing it twice and no seed at all.

Yep 5 is hard, just trying to keep the discussion concise is all. It was tough not to list a ton more, add these to my list and you've probably got my top ten.
'Patent Leather Shoes'
'Gold Marie'
'Pacific Blue Ice'
'Thunder'
'Brillante'
Still there are ones I love that aren't in those ten, such is the collectors condition.

A good variation in the roller seedlings I have, most are the basic green+red tips in various sizes but I have a yellowish one with orange tips and a tipless bright green that are cool. Looking forward to the release of your purple roller, my darkest is a cold maroon at best.
-Sol

Jo Ann,
Excellent choices!
'Cavo D'oro's form looks really nice, what a shame that it's infertile. 'Pacific charm' was a favorite of mine till I tried to cross a whole bloom of it and got no results, I guess you could say one of my personal parameters for what constitutes a favorite is fertility. Many of the plants on my list I have yet to raise seed from, so I'm sure my top 5 will continue to change as I gather more information.
'Proud Zelda' isn't one I'm fermiliar
with but the color looks unique in the photos I've seen, sort of a subtle tan. Calling out the progenitor of the Kevin lines! 'Jungle Shadows' all right!
Sounds like we have a consensus on the best darks.
Your pudgy green is adorable to!
Thanks for adding your two cents Jo Ann,
-Sol

Sol, I think you would like 'Zelda. She is darker than Lion King and just a bit fuzzy. Judges are still out on whether she is a good breeder. I did not get seed the first year I used it in a cross but that was my first year so I am trying again this year. Will let you know.

Kevin that purple roller sounds great.

I think Patent Leather Shoes (PLS) stands above other darks because of its waxy coat (from which it name is derived. )

That "pudgy green" one is 3 yrs old and very slow growing. I am hoping it is fertile. Wondering if that much 'wax' is what is slowing it down as green ones usually go pretty fast???

Very cute green one Jo Ann. Very waxy and fat leaves. Maybe next year it will take off in the production department.

Jo Ann,

I would be interested to hear if you get seedlings off of 'Zelda, I'm actually considering eliminating most of the infertile plants from my collection, so I'd rather not invest in another one if I can help it.
Unfortunately just because something is green does not make it a good grower or resistant to rot, a large, clean, smooth leaved green of mine is going through some awful rot, I had high hopes for it being my selection of a green tectorum type but alas. Plump leaves are worth keeping an eye on though even with slow growth, and it doesn't sound like you've had any rot out of your seedling so it might be a keeper!
-Sol

That's funny--I love the velvet mules and will always keep several