Wren, great photos. And yes, you seem to have become addicted.
Definitely one of us.
Looks like your pest treatment was successful. Great work.

That is a nice collection some good looking chicks there.

Very nice collection! Thank you for sharing the photos with us.

oh my! that's quite a 'start'
can't wait to see your in-the-ground pics

Your collection is looking good! and I can relate about the dog hair. We have a yorkie, a collie mix, and a chow chow and the last two get their fur EVERYWHERE. even way up on the bookshelves because one of them loves to shake her fur out by the fan where it then gets blasted all over the room.

Hi Wren, and welcome ! I don't get to check in here every day but try to as often as I can. Glad to see you've joined our discussions. You've sure got a great collection started already. Looking forward to watching it grow.

valleylynn said:Wren, great photos. And yes, you seem to have become addicted.
Definitely one of us.
Looks like your pest treatment was successful. Great work.

Lol, I dont play games when it comes to mealy bugs. Especially when I have a good chunk of indoor plants as well that I really would loath them infesting. Something about them is so unsettling and makes my skin crawl. Maybe its that they make me think of lice, but on plants. *shudders* I was in the mindset that I'd rather make sure they were eradicated and potentially kill the semps in the process that take a risk of not being through enough and introducing them to other non infested plants. They were confined to my garage with nothing but a very weak grow light for about 2 weeks. Day one they got stripped of soil, a full dip in rubbing alcohol and then repotted in sterile soil. After reading that such did not always knock them out I picked up some bayer systemic at the end of that first week and did a slightly stronger than normal dilution and submerged each fully in that, new soil and all. They stayed in the garage for another week or so, and then I moved them to my back porch to get some weak sunlight finally. The next watering I did I used a weaker dilution of the systemic just to make sure any eggs lingering that may have hatched got knocked out. Its been about 2 months now and no signs of mealy that I can see! Some are not pretty, but show growth and are putting out new roots and chicks which impressed the heck out of me given I really did not expect any to pull through. They were actually some of the first semps that I purchased, so I took it as an educational experience as I feel I actually ended up learning quite a lot about semps firsthand that I would not perhaps have otherwise. For instance - one thing I noticed in the process was that the chicks that already were sending out offset chicks seemed to pull through 10 times stronger with all that abuse than chicks that had none.

I did have a question for you guys - a few times I have received chicks that had begun curling their leaves under toward their stems. My best guess is that it is a response to stress from harvest and travel - not really a big deal. Most of them I have been able to coax into sitting more normal after removing a few bottom leaves and carefully propping them out against the gravel top dressing when planting. However I have one variety in particular (Lilac Time) where all of them were doing that on arrival and they are so tucked that I fear I will end up damaging them if I try to coax them too much. I had hoped once planted they might settle more to where I can get away with only removing a few base leaves and then working them down, but so far they are being stubborn as heck and I am a little worried they may not bounce back. The leaves are healthy, so would it hurt them to remove more leaves from the base in hopes that I can get them to lay a little flatter? I know that sometimes semps do this in reaction to not enough light or too much water as well, but neither of those are an issue in this case. They are sending out a few chicks, so if worst comes to worst I will have those to move forward with, but I also don't want to stress them so much that they decide to bloom ;P

Here is a photo of them in their temporary container, looking much like they did upon arrival (container has *plenty* of drainage holes drilled, and soil is cactus soil, pea gravel, perlite and a very small amount of large particle paver sand):


I also wanted to ask - what do those of you who have a number of semp beds do when you move or sell your house? We may be looking to sell our home and purchase a new one within the next 2-3 years, so its not something I need to worry about immediately, but I know for certain when I move I will not want to leave my semps behind. I am guessing at that point I will have enough of each variety to pot up a good few chicks from each to take along while leaving some behind for the new owners to enjoy, but have any of you completely transplanted entire colonies to pots before listing your home so that there is no question that they are not included in the sale and easier to exclude (ie potted plants are not part of the sale)? Since I do not have any colonies yet, I am not sure if I will feel the need to take them all or if Ill be happy taking a good number of offsets from each and leaving the remaining with the land - especially since the thought of whomever buys the house tearing them out to replace with something else makes me sad lol, but the thought of perhaps sparking interest in the new owner is exciting! I know its one of those things that I will likely figure out for myself what is best when it comes time, but it can't hurt to see what some of you might have done in similar situations

Well, I have gone and written yet another 'novel' here it seems. We have more rain forecasted for the next 3 days, but it looks like from Sunday forward things should be dry (but supposedly getting up into the high 80s to low 90s already, what???) so hopefully Ill be able to finally start getting some of my semps in the ground! We never usually have *this* much rain and it has been driving me crazy as I really don't want to end up planting them only to have them drenched for a week straight and then rot from that and humidity lol! The weather everyone seems to be having this year is so weird and I am definitely ready for that mess to straighten out

-Wren

Wren, if those Lilac Time semps are only in a temp container, and with passage of time, they might "relax" out of their stance but when you are ready to repot, and there's still that problem I don't see why you can't try to remove the leaves that are most troublesome. I would suggest trying to remove the entire leaf if possible by grabbing ahold of it closest to the stem so that when you pull, the entire leaf comes loose as opposed to just half the leaf and leaving an open wound on leaf such that you will have to pull the other half out too. I have taken more than 1/3 of the leaves off just to get the remaining leaves manageable enough to tuck rocks under them to prevent rot.

In regards to moving, I have moved from one state to another and had my collection of semps in the ground. I think you will find that moving is a very emotional time and you may feel that you want all or most of all to take with you. If anything you might take the ones that were hard to find or that you've never seen sold anywhere close by (in which case you should peruse the online semp vendors to see what's available). I took most everything that I liked (my collection was small). I pulled them out of the ground and planted them in flats so that they could be placed in vehicle that we were driving ourselves as moving company won't take plants or won't be responsible for them. They will take all the pots that you've emptied. You can always ask if potential buyer is interested in the plants and if not then there's Plan A to be carried out or you can specify up front in your sale contract what does not stay. I had a television wall rack screwed onto the wall and asked if the buyer would use it and she said no, so I unscrewed it from the wall and took it.

Wren, I would not want to be a bad bug with you after me. I think once word gets out in the insect community about your war on bugs they will say away from you plants.

I have never moved a large collection but as they have relatively small roots I do not see a problem taking as many as you want with you.
I think Bev's plan to use flats sounds like a good solution and do be sure you work it out with the new owners. I have moved and sold 3 house and buyers can be a little annoying so be sure everything that staying or going is in writing.

I also agree with the idea of using flats to move colonies of semps/sedum. The flats can stack if you get the right kind. And you can take up an entire mature colony and just lay it on the soil placed in the flat.
I agree with Bev about removing the bottom down pointing leaves from your 'Lilac Time'. Sometimes being placed in a dark box and shipped will make them do that. Good thing is that semps put out new leaves from the center of the rosette.

I was browsing some older threads and wondered how your semps are doing, Wren? @ZenAndCoffee

Yes, how are things going Wren?

@ZenAndCoffee how are the semps doing?

herrwood said:I am at the other end of the scale and just stick them in a pot and let them grow, they seem to grow in most any soil and thrive on neglect basically a plant you can't kill.

My century semps are hard to kill - although they squashed quite a few of them this summer when they replaced our patio fences. I lost my first Gold Nugget though. My 2 new ones are doing great though. And my Zilver Babies pretty much fried when we had a very hot spell when I was in the hospital in June and could not tend them. Only have a couple of those left, which I am still try to save.