valleylynn said:Wow, seems like we have having weather oddities everywhere this year.
Hi every one! My first post after reading your informative comments.
I just joined this morning.
I am in Zambia Africa. I love semps a lot. I have had one for around 5 years and made lots of babies from it., so decided to order a tray of 50 plugs from Mountcrest gardens USA.
They have arrived 2 weeks ago, in a brown paper bag all squashed in, but after reading a lot, I realized that not all seps are equal in surviving our conditions.
This is a picture of my semps after I washed from the soil they were covered in and planted them in just building sand without any organic matter in it, but very small particle sand.
A picture of the ones from USA when they just arrived
And few days later:
They are under a tree getting morning sun and late afternoon sun. Our winter is just starting but we dont go bellow 6C and that is at night only. In summer we are not too hot compared to Texas. We are 1400m above sea level.
This is another picture of them a couple of days ago.
When they came they were terribly etiolated, and all the leaves hunging down vertically. Now I can see new leaves and they are growing upwards. I also removed some chicks from them and planted them.
I check them every day, and so far I dont see any big problems. I watered them ones when they came, and then waited for the soil to dry. Perhaps I shall water them again today since you said they need moisture. I was so scared not to rot them.
I also bought some semps from SA less than a month ago, and those I put in full sun and so far they are doing well. They have actually grown and are getting many pups.
I shall try to take a picture of them today also:
This is a picture of the semp, I had for 5 years. It is planted just in river sand (large particles) but it is mixed with lots of clay inside so gets hard like a rock when it dries. I was contemplating repotting it in another mix.
I dont have perlite here, or even peat mix or compost. I import the compost from abroad but perlite never had, so I use just sand, and some pine bark (also imported)
This are some of the pups I planted from my old semp. I must be honest, they were totally neglected up to now. In full sun, and rarely watered by my gardener. In summer under rains almost every day. Some pups that were planted in garden soil even got rotten a bit but I dried them up and replanted them and they are fine now.
Now I am wondering if this semps from USA will grow and survive here, since they come from totally different climate and reversed summer plus that.
Any tips for me?
...we are happy to have you here, Neli. I hope your new colorful Mt Crest semps perk up so that they can keep your faithful pups (we call them chicks) wonderful company! 
