I brought several hen and chick from my grandmother's WI garden to CO when I moved with my DH in 2009. These plain little plants are very important to me. I have a great little rock garden along the side of my house and have expanded my collection with some eye catching additions from the botanic garden sale each year. Today, even after explaining thoroughly, my carefully tended rock garden had work boots treading over the hens and chicks for hours. Are they salvageable? Is there something I can do to help them? my grandmother's house was razed and paved into parking lot in 2011, I can never retrieve more plants.

:welcome:wholesomefolsom,
Welcome to All Things Plants.
I'm giving a shout out to @goldfinch4 and @valleylynn to bring their attention to your question; they are the moderators of the Sempervivum and Jovibarba Forum.

Thank you!

Hi Wholesomefolsom,

Glad to have you here but very sorry to hear about your sempervivum plants. You must be so disappointed. Hopefully your plants aren't totally crushed. If they just got pushed into the ground I would try to lift them back up to the top of the soil. They might not look real good, but If they can survive they should put out new chicks next year. If they're crushed they'll have a more difficult time recovering. Not much help, I know, but wishing you the best of luck.

I agree with Chris, the root system is probably alright, whats about the soil line will go into shock, but with fall & winter just around the corner,it will give your babies time to re-coup. Hen & Chicks are tough and will come back next spring. I forgot to say to the forums,Christine

Hi wholesomefolsom, and to ATP.
That is heartbreaking, and I am so sorry to hear what happened. Can you take a photo for us, so we can evaluate their condition? That would be very helpful in knowing what you should do.
Chris is right, they are such tough little plants.

This is one that came from my grandmother's house


Botanic garden purchase, was much more handsome last week



Everything has concrete dust on it, should I wash it all off? I am on clay native soil, thus is why i decided to build succulent rock garden up on top of the gravel and use pea gravel and soil amendment within the gravel for extra drainage. I don't think they can get water logged, but I have never watered them and they seemed happiest the more I neglect them




Such a shame I have to share this pic of my rock garden instead of one that has all the green, reds, and purples in their glory.





I'm not as concerned about the sedum tile pieces as that can be replaced, but are they hardy to damage as well?

Thank you to everyone for their help. I was at such a loss when googling how much man handling my little plants could deal with

Hi, wholesomefolsum from me too!

Danged contractors, they can really be aggravating. Your story brought back memories of eight years ago when we had our pool and deck refinished. Even after asking them to please be as careful as possible, the workers trampled plants and even washed out their cement buckets on the side of the house, leaving white stuff all over the foliage of rose bushes and other shrubs ... and even my tomato plants! When they were finally finished with the job I went around the yard and found they'd left trash and chunks of cement behind the shed! I swore that the next time we had contractors doing any outside work, I would put up a very large sign saying:

ANYONE stepping on, crushing or damaging plants in ANY manner, is subject to be COMPOSTED!

Remembrance plants are always special to us and from the photos you've shown, your plants don't look like they were damaged too much so I do hope that they recuperate. I don't know a thing about growing Hen & Chicks, only that we have some real beauties in our database: http://garden.org/plants/brows...
We have lots of members who grow Semps so if you ever want to know more about those lovely plants you should check out our forum specifically for Hens & Chicks: http://garden.org/forums/view/...

Thank you plantladylin - for what it's worth, our contractor was actually pretty fantastic in most regards. I may be being a little too harsh on them. I went with the most expensive contractor bid because his itemized list specifically reflected a wash out basin (so they weren't washing tools and disposing of debris on my lawn). But, big burly concrete construction guys aren't exactly dainty. I even went to the extent of expanding my own Spanish so I could effectively say "no Pisa esta flores. Pertencian a mia abuela morta" No stepping on the plants, they belonged to my dead grandmother!

Warm welcome, Folsom! Your little plants will be set back a bit, but I'm sure most will recover. I'd wash off as much of the concrete dust as you can, patch them up as others have suggested, and hope for the best. Brings back a memory from some 35 years ago when we were building our house. When the bulldozer arrived for some dirt work, the operator told me in no uncertain terms, "I don't want to hear any whining about your [expletive] pansies!" Luckily I had nothing whatsoever planted at that point in time, and as it turned out that operator became a close family friend. Still a bit rough around the edges...but a sweetheart.

Thank you everyone for jumping in to offer help for the new ATP member. Now that I see photos it does look like the plants will recover with a bit of time and T.L.C.

I didn't have Semps but contractors decided to hide behind their temporary dumpster to do their toilet and killed one on two matching Boxwoods.
Perhaps these nasty contractors should be reported to Angie's List (or a similar site) and/or to the Better Business Bureau so others can be warned away.

Welcome to All Things Plants. I would be heartbroken if this occurred. I could not have helped you, but you've gotten some great advice. If we ever have to hire people to work on the property, we will do our best to protect what we can.

We will be having a lot of people over the next three weekends, and we will be putting up caution tape, flags, or some such... Don't park here! I've got some struggling baby yuccas and small native plants that do not need heavy vehicles resting on them.

Most aren't looking to bad, but your heirloom semp has sustained quite a bit of damage.
If the plants are dry you can use a small paint brush to gently brush out the debris. If that doesn't work use a gentle spray of water to wash the debris out.
With your grandmothers semp I would gently remove all damaged leaves, if necessary replant them. I see signs of healthy growth. I believe they will make it.

I would love to see more photos of their progress as they start to recover.

Hi & welcome! So sorry that happened. Not plants I know well, but kudos to the garden you've started & good vibes for a thorough recovery!

Thank you for all the kind and helpful words everyone. I think my little garden will be able to bounce back this spring. I realized that I have several of my grandmother's plant offspring in many different areas of the rock garden and did find a few that weren't damaged hardly at all. I will post some pics of the lesser damaged plants and some of the pics from this spring here so you can see what I'm working with.













Dusty but hopefully just fine

Quote:
"no Pisa esta flores. Pertencian a mia abuela morta" No stepping on the plants, they belonged to my dead grandmother!

I went back and re-read the thread and I see something. Flowers. You asked the men to not step on your flowers. They probably do not the the plants in your rock garden as actual 'flowers' like with petals and pretty colors. It could be that they were just innocently stepping on things that grow almost as weeds in their native countries.

That's very true, maybe planta would have been better. fwiw, I did bring them to the flores in question and showed one that had been trodden on from the crew the day before (the concrete company we used has specific jackhammer/tear out crews, form building crews, and concrete pouring/finishing crews based on their skill.... but that also meant I had different people each day). I had asked for my translation from a Hispanic friend who assured me that explaining that they were my dead grandmother's would be the best way to explain their importance. She told me very seriously no one messes with abuela. It was likely the tight quarters that forced some stepping despite their best efforts

I'm so sorry to hear what happened to your plants!

Hi Thomas, and a big to ATP. So glad you found your way here.
I think maybe wholesomefolsum may save at least some of her treasured semps.

@wholesomefolsum, how are they doing?