All of the Sempervivums except the little orphan are in the greenhouse now. If we didn't have some trips planned they would stay there from now until...forever. But I have to set up irrigation to keep all the other plants alive and it will get humid in there, so I will bring all of the succulents back to the garage to stay dry during our absence.
Some of them already have been growing this spring so before they get any further I took baseline images of them today. Since Semps grow mostly horizontally, not vertically, I took most of the images from above. I didn't have a tripod, didn't focus stack, and the light wasn't great so I'm not going to post all the images. But I thought two of them from the original Plants for Pets order unpacked Jan. 29 were worth a look.
I believe the first one is Unknown #3, and may have declared it dead prematurely. I appear to have gotten it mixed up with Unknown #4, which had pronounced purple tips. This is why I dislike getting plants that don't have IDs. Anyway, it looks like #3 is putting on some growth this spring, and the leaves are much darker than they were a few months ago.
The next one is and always has been Unknown #5. While #3 has added purple, #5 has been becoming more green. The other interesting thing about #5 is the way it pups. It has two new buds growing from the stem rather than forming on stalks, which means it is a species called Sempervivum heuffelii. Three of the six late lamented frost victims were heuffelii, but I don't know if you can draw conclusions from that since this one survived. In the overhead shot, the offsets are on opposite sides at about 2:00 and 8:00. The second image shows one of the offsets.
Of the original 10 Sempervivums, six were lost to the frost but one lives on through the orphan. Of the survivors, 'Budai Mountains' seems the least active. It isn't dying, but it hasn't reacted to spring yet. The actual Budai Mountains are a low range of hills (1,834 feet) in Hungary, much lower than my location in the Beartooth Mountains foothills (5,588 feet). It is somewhat less cold hardy than the others and maybe it needs it to warm up more. (But somehow it survived the frost.) Unknown #6 hasn't grown much but the edges of the leaves and the centers of the two rosettes are now very dark purple. Unknown #1, represented by the orphan, is very green and is growing new webbing.
I've been referring to #1 as an arachnoideum for lack of a better description, and it occurred to me to ask Google if all webbed Sempervivums were arachnoideums. The answer was "no." We will have to see what the offsets and flowers look like.
Including three on order, I'm now up to 16 live Sempervivum varieties including a duplicate of 'Gold Nugget.' I need to convert half of the greenhouse to gritty, well-draining soil to have somewhere to put them. The beds are 16.5 inches deep. I figure the top 12 inches of garden soil and compost needs to become 50% pumice, about half a yard (13.5 cubic feet). In Oregon next to the volcanoes, that would cost $25. Here, 1,000 miles away, I'm hoping it will be no more than $250. We don't have volcanoes.
I have updated the static Sempervivum page with all of my acquisitions, including those which have been lost, with links to images where appropriate:
Most recent acquisition, a tight-webbed unknown purchased at Nana's Bloomers, April 14:
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