I found several deformed semps in my raised bed. These were planted last year. In one clump some were deformed and some were fine. Any ideas what could have caused this? I think I'm going to write to Squaw Gardens and see if they have any input.

I think the rabbits or voles chewed on this one a bit too.

Which cultivars are they Chris?

I'll check when I get home tonight.

I'll wait for our post.

OK, I think I'm officially crazy! I forgot to check last night so I'm outside at 2:30 this morning with a flashlight checking them out! I hope no neighbors saw me....

The first picture is Nouveau Pastel, the second one is Lilac Queen. But I also have a few others in that bed that did the same thing: Jubilee, Glaucum Minor and Leocadia. These were not all purchased from the same source and they were all fine when I planted them last year. This is a new development this Spring.

Haven't heard back from Squaw Mountain yet. I'm sure they're really busy right now and it might be a while.

The Lilac Queen may have done that because of the damage by the rodents, I have a few this year that were misshapen. For mine it was the 10 degree weather in Dec, then constant rain for several months with cold but no snow cover. They do seem to be snapping out of it though and all the chicks are looking good.
I can't really tell by the picture of Nouveau what looks wrong.

It's kinda hard to explain. How it looks in "real life" is instead of a hen putting out chicks which grow out on stamens, the chicks are all clustered inside the hen forcing the hen to split apart.

I was thinking about it this morning and I've had some fasciated plants (mostly lilies) that sort of resembled these. I looked up fasciation and it was pretty interesting. All hen and chicks are actually ring fasciated plants! Check out this site: https://www.rhs.org.uk/AdviceS...

Some things I found in this article that support my thinking that these are fasciated are: "shoots that appear to be composed of several fused shoots" and "misshapen flower heads with numerous flowers". Also look in the article for causes.... So, that's my official guess!

YEAH What a slewth you are. I have one of my Lewisia that faciated. Waiting to see if it blooms. I have not had that in any of my semps though. Will read the article when I get back from taking the GC to school. Great slewthing Chris.

If the growing tip of the hen becomes damaged, you may find that the hen will develop alternate growing areas which are between the leaves of the hens.

Thanks Twitcher - that's exactly what the "defects" look like. And between the nasty winter and critters, I've no doubt that the growing tips were damaged.

Edited to add - Glad to see you here - hope you stay and join in often!

Hi twitcher, and a very big welcome. Thank you for answering goldfinche4's question. We are all learning together and welcome any knowledge you may have that would help us learn more. Would also love to have you contribute to the database if you have pictures. We have been putting date, location (as in PNW) and zone info with each photo entered. It has been so much fun seeing the difference each of these can go through in different times of the year and different growing conditions. We are also starting to keep track of how many chicks a cultivar might have. We are finding some are heavy produces and some only produce a few chicks each year.
Hope to see you often.

Lynn, I did take a look at your database and was thinking about making a comment regarding names. Among us collectors, which I assume is everybody here, the name and label of the type of semp is very important. Thus my concern regarding how names appear in the db so far.

By convention, names should be of the form S. 'Variety' or S. 'Hybrid Name' for those Sempervivum that are hybrids or named types that are not species (variety name is in caps as in Sempervivum 'Maigret'). If you are dealing with a Sempervivum species, then the species name is not capitalized as in S. hausmanii. This is important to me, in that I have a certain fondness for the species types and like to be able to tell them when names are given. I was hoping you could take a look at your database and see if there was a way to make the names display correctly so that we all could tell. I think it is helpful to follow the proper naming conventions.

And a big thanks to Chris and Lynn for the kind welcome. I've been lurking for awhile here on cubits.

Lastly, regarding deformed semps, I have noticed that if I take a pot of semps that have been growing on a level space and prop them so that the pot is no longer level, such as at a 30 degree angle for example, that the semps in the pot will exhibit asymmetrical growth.

twitcher, very good advice. I will try to start working on fixing the database problem tomorrow. I just learned something new today, thanks to you.
Could you please type out what it should look like, or can you post a picture of what an entry should look like? It would be wonderful to be sure I am understanding you before I start changing things.
Any other suggestions are very welcome. We really want to be able to have all info on a specific semp all in one place. So if you think of any other fields that would be good to add for the entries just let me know.

S. 'Maigret'
S. 'Atroviolaceum' (Heimlich)
S. 'Red Beauty'

(above) are examples of hybrid or varietal names.

S. hausmanii
S. piloseum
S. arachnoideum

(above) are examples of species names

S. calcareum 'Greenii'

(above) is a variety called 'Greenii' of the species S. calcareum

J. heuffelii 'Sundancer'

(above) is the variety 'Sundancer' of the species Jovibarba heuffelii.

S. arachnoideum x pittonii

(above) is an example of the cross or hybrid of two species of Sempervivum.

S. x barbulatum f/Valle Quarozzo

(above) a hybrid or form (?) of species S. barbulatum that is from Valle Quarozzo

Naming can get very complicated. For awhile, hybrids between species were being given new names, as if they were species. Hybrids between named types also exist. If you thought it was tough to ID based on pictures .... It's not nice to try to put Mother Nature into strict categories - she has her own ideas.

BTW, these are all part of my collection as well and very nice! I strongly recommend that everybody start reading the Sempervivum Journal - dry stuff, but you will learn about the science and history of these plants, as well as some of the people that gave them to us. I think it is available through one of this cubits links.

I've printed the above post twitch. I will start to work on it tomorrow. Thank you.

How interesting that semps will exhibit asymmetrical growth if the pot is at an angle. Sounds like you will help us learn a lot more about these fun plants. Looking forward to that!