Final toll

The final count is in from the Semperpocalypse. None of the six Sempervivums theat were damaged by the frost on Feb. 19 survived.

I thought three of them might make it, but over recent weeks they continued to deteriorate. I thought I could see some green through the webbing on the Arachnoideum, but I don't see it now. I will stick the remains of these three in 2-inch pots in a corner somewhere and announce if any miracles occur, but right now there are new Semps on order and I need their pots.

One reason I was reluctant to give up on the damaged Semps was the little dry ball that fell out of the shipping box on Jan. 28. I decided not to throw it away and today it is the only surviving sibling or descendent of the Arachnoideum.

There is some debris stuck in the webbing that I haven't tried to remove for fear of damaging the webbing, but the webbing is much thinner now than it had been. I've posted this "before" picture several times but it's worth comparing this one from less than six weeks ago to today's image. The plant is currently 1 1/4 inches wide, and I believe it was less than an inch in the older image.

My current Sempervivum inventory includes the relatively new Strawberry Kiwi (Chick Charms), four survivors of the Semperpocalypse, and the little Arachnoideum. The plants on order include five Sempervivums of the Chick Charms line, developed by hybridizer Chris Hansen of Garden Solutions in Michigan, so receipt of those will get me to 11 varieties.

I also took some other photos today. This one is of the Powder Puff cactus I posted about a few days ago. That bloom has faded and this is a new one. Photographing this flower exposed another deficiency in Photoshop's processing of focus bracketing. It kept bringing the complicated background into focus and ignored the bloom. This is a single image, and I cropped it tight because most of the cactus is out of focus.

Coming later today: Images of the Ogre Ears, the other Purpusorum stalk (see yesterday), the other Echeveria stalks (ditto), and the Aeonium. But for now I have to get to the greenhouse and unload a few buckets of compost. It is cooler than it has been the past few days, but I need to get the back of my truck cleared out.