Here are some sempervivum that seem to have trouble with our wet winters. And it may even be that it is a combination of summer drought and winter wet. The summer drought causes the bottom leaves to dry out and die. Then winter comes along, with months of rain and cold, causing the dead leaves to rot.
Crimsonette 2/21/2016


Hyacinth 2/21/2016


Pacific Hep 2 21 2016 This one is not as bad, but still lost some of the rosettes. I completely lost 'Pacific Hep Sport'.


Which one have you had trouble with?

If misery loves company this should be a popular thread! I think it's good to share not only our finest specimens but our most spectacular failures as well.

My 'Pacific Hep' looks similar to Lynn's. Both look like they will somehow manage to pull through.


I had a small potted 'Jeramaia' that was left in the rain and rotted. It is now in the compost heap.

Here's 'Thayne' which doesn't really look so bad. There was another rosette that I pulled up to check for stem rot, which I didn't find. A needless sacrifice, but I will do this from time to time if I feel it will help me learn what's going on.



Here's a potted 'Raspberry Ice' which had a large over-congested area that seemed problematic. I decided to thin it out and as I did so alot of it seemed like it might be rotting. The main stem is now gone. I may have overdone things a bit.



The good news is it looks splendid from the other side.



Lessons learned... don't leave potted semps out in the rain over the winter, and stay away from 'Pacific Hep*'.

All in all, I feel like I had very few actual issues. I think having a good eastern exposure for early morning sunshine has been a big help.

Thank you for sharing your special needs semps Tim. Most just take a little work cleaning them up, to save the cultivar for demise.
Good work.

Here's some of my casualties awaiting emergency surgery .
First up is Ciliosum Borisii .



Next is Oddity






Ohio Burgundy.


All these were growing in troughs with good drainage. This winter here we had continuous heavy rain , the highest on record . Next year I'll be building covers 😁

Yes, those look a lot like mine Paddy.
The amazing thing to me is that others didn't seem to be troubled by the identical growing conditions.

valleylynn said: The amazing thing to me is that others didn't seem to be troubled by the identical growing conditions.

That's a good thing to show us which semps can are probably better acclimated to this particular kind of weather conditions. Maybe the tough ones in drier, hot conditions would be different semps?

Much of the time it is a problem with either the soil, not fast enough draining, our the leaves laying on the soil, no grit/gravel under the plants.

Then we come to the thought of dead leaves from summer drought turning to mush, causing the healthy leaves laying on them to start rotting.

Wow
I have never been so grateful for a frozen winter until now!

Here is my worst looking casualty:

losta dead crispy leaves to clean up and rosettes to spread around, but really it's okay--no rot.
Interestingly, this one is not in a particularly well draining soil and it was covered with overburden of leaves and snow-smashed dying neighbor plants and buried under pretty deep snow all winter on top of the overburden. We got a big dump early and it never melted much and then we just kept getting more.

Here is one of my ciliosums

it is actually planted in this fairly shallow geode and it has no drain hole--the rock was tipped so that it sloped to drain down this crack you see in front there, but the rock fell backward at some point. It is looking a little rough here, after all the snow melt and I had just removed the leaf mess to see it for the first time. It has dried out now and is looking better but I don't have another pic.

I do have a difficult time in the summer (with wicked hot and sun and no water if that helps any one to feel any better)

You are just showing us how much semps love a real winter. Great examples Dirt.
All those dead leaves are a result of your hot/dry summer. But without all the winter/spring rain we get in the PNW they stay happy and healthy.

This thread is really great. I see a couple of you had trouble with Pacific Hep. That was kind of what I was asking on the thread I posted, but nobody answered. I love the Pacifics, but have had trouble with a few of them. If everybody else has problems with them, too, I guess it's not worth tracking them down again. But, you know how it is once you know and love them.

Hi ravenpickers. I am so sorry I didn't answer your post. I don't know how I missed it.
I have problems every year with 'Pacific Hep', but I love it's spring and summer colors so much I keep struggling with it. It never seems to die out completely, and comes back on it's own.
What conditions have you grown it in? What growing zone are you in? And what growing medium are you using. It helps to know the specific of your growing conditions, maybe we can figure a way to have them grow for you.
Do you grow other semps?

I am in zone 5, but the winter before last was really bad. We had several nights, and even days, that were below zero. One night we even went down to 23 below. Brrrrrr!!! I experiment with mediums, since my garden soil here is VERY clay, so its tough to mix. I try to stay with 50/50 potting mix and garden soil. I even bought top soil to mix in with the potting soil, but it seems the local topsoil is mostly clay, too. My husband and I moved here (Ohio) eight years ago from South Jersey. They don't call Jersey the Garden State for nothing. It was MUCH easier to garden there. The soil was a sandy loam and the temps are much milder. Anyway, I got carried away, when I first found named varieties on the internet. I was going to open a greenhouse, but that fell through. In the anticipation of that, I was buying all the varieties of semps I could get my hands on. I soon found out that one person can have a really hard time managing the 300 plus or minus varieties that I had, plus my other gardens. Between being a dummy, working full time and 2 nasty winters, I am down to somewhere between 125 and 150 varieties of semps, including some heuffeliis and jovibarbas. I have several varieties of the Pacifics that are VERY prolific! I have Pacific Knight, Pacific Devil's Food, Pacific Greensleeves, Pacific Red Rose and Pacific Red Tide all over the place. I have trouble keeping those from crowding out, but I struggle with others. I was on a roll with the Pacifics and was trying to get them all, so I have quite a few. Some hang on, but others like Pacific Zoftic, Dawn, Showboat, Daemon, Teddy, Mauve and Hepsport I can't keep. I have replaced Zoftic 5 times and have lost all but one over the years. That's why I was wondering if they were just not quite as hardy as most semps. I still do want those ones but, if I ever get them back, I think I'm going to build a cold frame for the winter. Also, I had problems with some of them heaving over the winter. A big problem is wind blowing the soil away, because we live on top of a hill. We just went and picked up 3/4 ton of grit, so everybody is getting stoned. Anyway, that is most of my story, One of these days I'll get a list together.

Hi Margo You're right - there are some varieties that are just not as hardy as others - at least in our PNW rain. Jolly Green Giant, Rubikon, Moss Rose and Pacific Hepsport to name a few. And the downy ones don't hold up as well either. It's frustrating when they don't thrive but on the other hand there are more varieties out there than I can possibly grow so I move on to ones that do well in our climate.

Margo, I don't think it is the cold getting your semps. It sounds more like the soil/soil mix you are using.
Semps are hard to keep happy in a forest product/peat type mix. It might work if you dig ups the area of clay soil and add lots of crushed rock, the sharp edged type, not rounded like pea gravel. This will greatly improve your clay soil and make it drain faster. To this process you can add some of the organic material mixing everything really well for about 6" to 12" deep. That is for growing in the ground.
For container growing semps I would use a good potting mix and add lots of chicken grit and some sharp sand, not fine sand. Or if you can get sandy loam delivered mix it about 1/3 and 1/3 chicken grit and 1/3 with the high quality potting mix, not potting soil.

I'm not sure if you are wanting information for in ground or in pots information?

Thanks Lynn, I had never heard of mixing chicken grit. I don't mean to be stupid, but do you mean the chicken grit that chickens actually eat? I hope they sell it in bulk, because I need A LOT. I have already done about half, so those ones are just going to have to live with it. Pun intended. When I said I got 3/4 tonight of grit, that's what the aggregate supply calls really small stones, but they are smooth, and I bought it to top dress. I took a picture of it with Koko Flanel.




Thanks, Patty. I do have plenty of others, but l'm probably still going give those maybe one more chance.

I forgot this was a nasty winter damage thread, so here's my nasty winter damage pic of Feuerstein.

That's how a lot of mine looked after a winter in Oregon. Since this area of Washington gets so much more rain, I covered the beds with plastic and they came thru looking way better than they did in Oregon! Although I did leave the most difficult ones behind

I also had a few colonies this year that look like your above photo Margo. I'm trying to make up my mind on whether or not to keep them. Most years they have come through with no damage. This year was particularly difficult with a lot more rain than usual.

I never throw them out. Everybody gets a chance. I tried tossing them once, and I could hear them screaming from the trash can.

I found some that I tossed out last year. They are growing on a pile of gravel mixed with dirt. Surprised me.
I usually give them all away, the ones I don't want to keep.