My dear family Christmas gifts.
I am very happy!

Beautiful László!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

My first semps!
Started off from just one rosette given by a friend.

Hens and Chicks from my local garden centre.

Very cute, Paddy. I love hens and chicks, including the real ones!

haha me too love them!!
Laszlo nice gifts!!
Happy holidays everyone!
Paddy from the Emerald City (Seattle) to the Emerald Isle (Ire) Cheers!
Connie - totally where I see them the most (nursery gallon or larger containers!)
Kevin how interesting it makes sens to me that they are the first land plant, because they look so much like beached seaweed, I think that's why I like them! Also seems some of them provide some important chemicals/enzymes so that's a good thing too!
Peace on earth begins with understanding and wonder!!!

The weather is back to normal here ,ie its raining cats and dogs . Threat of snow on high ground .

Sorry for your soggy weather, too much of a good thing!

Weather here is cold, 15 degrees right now. and getting colder with more snow (we got a few inches yesterday-- a White Christmas) We will have some bitter cold in a day or two. Am praying it will moderate by the following weekend. (should be a praying icon) Click to see the 7 day ..


Did you see the -7 degrees F for Wednesday? Will be staying home and hoping my semps survive it.

Semps in the dark .
Testing my new tablet in the dark I found out what really happens at night .

MY goodness the moss is really thick on the trough!!! But I guess that is normal for "The Emerald Isle," isn't it?

Lots of moss here Marilyn especially in places you don't want it to grow . I guess it's the damp climate . When I made this trough a few years ago I gave it a liberal coating of old yogurt and sour milk . These are supposed to encourage the growth of mosses and lichens .
I think it takes a few years at least before raw concrete weathers enough for moss to take hold. I'm shortly going into production making a load of troughs for my too rapidly expanding sempre family .

We use hypertufa (a little lighter than pure concrete) for our best results here in states. Would you care to share your recipe? Or is it pure cement?

I use a 3 parts sand , 1 part sieved peat moss and 1 part cement mixture .
It's hard to find Perlite here and it's expensive € 10 for a small bag . Cement is €5 for a bag I can barely lift and the sand is almost free so no hypertufa for me .
I think the addition of the peat helps with darkening the colour of the trough and also helps neutralise the alkaline in the cement making the mosses grow sooner . I'm trying to make the optimum size planter that's portable and doesn't require a gorilla to move it around . One earlier model I made is permanently at the back of my house unless I can borrow a helicopter to winch it out !!

liverwort is a real baine of my pots, just can't seem to get rid of it. Now I know why though, thanks for the expatiation Kevin!

Great presents Laszlo!

They look lovely and healthy Paddy, despite the rain!

It's very wet here today too, Much of Wales is knee deep in snow but we've only had bucket fulls of slushy sleet.

Keep dry and warm thru the New Year, Kate!

Yikes Marilyn! We are getting a little colder next week too, but it was 52F here today. Had a nice walk around the yard and had a whole clump of I. unguicularis 'Winter Treasure' blooming. I cut a stalk of one yesterday to bring to Xmas dinner. They are odd for a beardless iris in wanting dry, alkaline soil so they grow next to my porch, where there is a wash from the concrete. The rest of the yard is ACID, as you might expect with all the Douglas firs!

Kevin

Laszlo, I see you got the Orostachys you were looking for. Congratulations.
Do you have a name for them?

Paddy, love you photos of your first semps, and the night time photo is wonderful. Is that slugs I see? Reminds me that I need to go out and bait for them again, with all of this mild weather we've been having.

Marilyn, WOW, that is some cold weather. Are you getting wind with it? Brrrrrr

Kate, do you usually have snow this time of year? Do you usually have a white winter?

Kevin this week will be a test to see just how hardy our semps are. This weekend it is suppose to rain, then the cold comes. Highs in the thirties, low 20's at night. And no snow for a blanket for our little sempervivum.

My gentian and rhododendrons are blooming, tulip bulbs coming up all over my raised beds. Hope I don't lose the spring blooms?

Lynn,

Yes no place for wimps this week! Good week to stay inside and watch football! I'm finishing up the last index for the beardless iris book. It's MIND NUMBING work! Can't imagine ever doing that for a living.

I did get the last seed cleaned from the stalks that matured very late, so now I have 138 different crosses to plant!! That should be an impressive crop if I get good germination. Even did a few roller crosses between 'Emerald Spring' and subsp. allioni 'yellow form' as I hadn't made a roller cross since the early 70's. It should be fun.

STAY WARM EVERYBODY!

Kevin

Kevin, I am really looking forward to seeing what you get from the roller crosses. It would be wonderful to get something very different.
It's not raining here yet, and company just left. May go out and walk around the beds. Been missing visiting them.

Its set to go to minus 5°C (23 f) here tonight ,that'll sort out the semps from the wimps . Maybe kill a few slugs too !
Kevin, that's some lot of seed sowing to do . What do you do in your spare time ?