@madcratebuilder Hey Steve, I know you have some semps and wanted to make sure you know about this thread in Sempervivum forum (I couldn't remember if I'd seen you post on here or not?) Also in April there will be a semp clinic and you are so close you should join, it happens in Salem OR

valleylynn said:Daniel, put me on the list for one of those 'Kassandra Marie' semps when they are ready.

You got it Lynn & Thanks for the acorn tip

parttimegardener said:Daniel, are you planning to start seedlings next year? Or are there already some seedlings you could show us in the seedling chat?

I haven't started any yet but I already hybridize a few fruits and daylilies so I want to try my hand at some semps and maybe some sedums. I love the seedling thread everybody's semps look so good. BTW my second son's name is Michael too.
I would love to cross echeverias and Sempervivums . Plant delight crosses Agaves with Manfreda and since hostas are also related to agaves they are attempting to cross Agaves and hostas in the near future. We all know about plouts by now but they also have Plum x cherry interspecific hybrids too. I love interspecific hybrids and echeveria & Semps are both in the same kingdom, order, and family so it may be possible. The chromosome count would be the only thing stopping them, they would both need to be the same of very close. If it is possible the off spring wouldn't be as hardy as Semps but should be way more hardy than echeverias.

Good luck, Daniel, with your interspecific crosses - I tried quite many Sempervivum x Roller crosses and had a rather low growing rate - some crosses without any viable seedlings, only a hand full of seedlings from different crosses (that may or may not come from my crossing activity).- I will see the result once they are older and flowering.
This year I only did sempervivum crosses and left the two flowering rollers I had to the few insects that visited our balcony.

I have a lot of semps to plant tomorrow so I figured I'd show you all what I do to improve my drainage and see what you all think. First I fill the bottom 3-4 inches of a 3 gallon pot with large rocks then put smaller rocks on them and to fill in the gaps.

Then I add potting soil with extra perlite and coarse sand on top

I was adding chicken grit to the soil mix but now I'm just adding even more perlite and they both seem to drain just as quickly. After I plant the semps I come behind and top dress with the grit to keep the foliage off the soil.

Hi Daniel, I usually prepare the pots including top dress and then use a wooden pick or chop stick to get the roots of the rosettes under the surface. This works very well if you plan to plant several rosettes in one pot. This way you avoid getting perlite/ gravel into your rosettes and you have your top dress evenly distributed on the whole surface. I once posted this as a gardening idea and it still works very well for me.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/p...

Thanks for the great tip Michael, the article you wrote was well written an easy to understand.

I will have to add some grit to mine I can see some bare soil around a few of them.

A pic of the arach chick! A few weeks ago I noticed 2 squashed leaves and though something squashed them. The first offset came from the base of the chick and is growing towards another chick! The new ones are forming closer to the center of the rosette! Would that be it starting to mound?

Lynn. aka the banner. I always make sure the left side of the image isn't very interesting.
We had snow.

Wow Jo Ann, snow already?

Daniel I love the way you prepare for new plants. The mix looks great. And I love Michael's suggestion of topdressing and using a pick or chopstick to plant. I use an old steak knife to punch the holes through the chicken grit.

gg5 said:@madcratebuilder Hey Steve, I know you have some semps and wanted to make sure you know about this thread in Sempervivum forum (I couldn't remember if I'd seen you post on here or not?) Also in April there will be a semp clinic and you are so close you should join, it happens in Salem OR

I plan on the semp clinic health permitting. Most of my semps are noids, I hope to ID some of them as I see seasonal changes.

syzone8aUK said:A pic of the arach chick! A few weeks ago I noticed 2 squashed leaves and though something squashed them. The first offset came from the base of the chick and is growing towards another chick! The new ones are forming closer to the center of the rosette! Would that be it starting to mound?

Yes... it is beginning to mound. Slowly now and thru Winter but will accelerate in Spring. You will probably get many more new chicks at that time as well.

Steve ok great to hear!
Daniel, some of the semps I sent you have quite a bit of soil left on them so doing the top dressing thing will be challenging. But for the little chicks this method works great and chicken grit is light enough it seems to stimulate root growth!!
Sy looks like the mom is making room for the babies! One thing I've noticed is if you keep semps crowded in you are more likely to get odd shaped ones, or even crested ones if you like that sort of thing!

Gerg I went through and put grit on about 10 pots before I started planting to try Michael's idea and the first 3 pots where a pain in the butt the grit kept back filling the holes I'd make so after I finished all 10 of those pots I went back to my old way of pouring the grit in after planting and lifting the semps to tuck some under. Needless to say after doing about 3 pots my way I found Michael's method is better so I went back to it for all the other semps. It just takes some getting use to but once you get the hang of it it works very well. The only ones that gave me issues where the pots with more than 5 or 6 offsets per pot it gives you less room to move the grit from around the hole but anything under 5 offsets it works like a champ.
I'll be sure to post pictures tomorrow I ran out of daylight today but I have all your semps planted now I don't drink but after doing all that planting I think I need a stiff one to ease my stiff back Thank you so much for trading with me Greg I can't wait to see what spring holds.
Tomorrow I have a few more semps I got from Lynn to plant then I'll be done with planting until next spring. Thank you both so much for helping me get started with my collection, it's no longer a little one and I have no plans on stopping now. My name is Daniel and I'm a sempaholic

Daniel, I'm glad to hear that my method worked for you. I'm using it exclusively since last year, both in small pots and big planters independent of the number of rosettes to be planted. In small rosettes I often leave less than 1 cm of space in between the plants. If I had to apply the top dress (3-5 mm basalt grit) after planting, it would be impossible to get it distributed evenly.
By the way, thank you for the acorn tip!

Good Morning Daniel! Yep you're in the right place! You are not alone in this!
It is a lot of planting! Yes can't wait to see what the spring holds for all your plants, they're really going to color up nicely!

Yeah, another sempaholic has joined us. Oops, I mean, is there anyway we can help you with your addiction Daniel?
We are here to help you in anyway we can. Problem is that the condition might become worse with our help.

She won't broadcast this, but Lynn has been the biggest "enabler" and we love her for it.

all of you are with all the lovely photos you share on the threads and in the database it's hard to say no
I'm heading out to go take pics now had to help with the baby for a while and cook lunch but everything is planted now and I'll be back in a little bit

These came from Greg, Thank you Greg
Aglow

Anne Marie

Artist

Belladonna

Boromir Crested

Boromir

Bronze Pastel

Carnival

Coldfire

Congo

Cresta

Dark Horse

Faramir

Fire Dragon

Gingerbread Boy

Goedele

Grammens

Haberer Boy

Hart

heuffelii Irem

Hidde's Roosje

Irazu

Jellybean

Koko Flannel

Korresia

Liliane

Maria Laach

Ohio Burgundy

Pacific Devil's Food

Pacific Opal

Pacific Red Tide

Pacific Shadows

Pacific Spring Frost

Packardian

Patent Leather Shoes

Proud Zelda

Rauhreif

Rubikon

Sassy Frass

Sempervivum x nixonii 'Feuerrad'

Sonja

Terra Cotta Baby

Thunder

Zarubianum

These came from Lynn Thank you Lynn
Amanda

Besame Mucho

Boromir

Chocolate Pepper

Dynamo

Flasher

Grammens

Lentezon

Michael's Golden

Nortoft's Beauty

Othello

Pepito