Sempervivums! Hens & Chicks Cold Hardy Succulents!

Hey, what's up garden friends? Jeff here at Tropical Plant Party. How's everybody doing? Hope you're good. I'm great. Today I want to talk about the hens and chicks. Or more specifically, Sempervivum tectorum. Hens and chicks. Really? Airplane? Um, excuse me. Excuse me. I'm trying to make a video here, Tucker. Sempervivums are a very common, succulent, herbaceous perennial native to central Europe. In hardy zones 3 through 8. Now the reason it's only 3 through 8 is they need a chill period. They do kind of appreciate that cooler season that you get in zones 3 through 8. They have dry to medium watering needs. They don't really like to be soaking wet. By they don't really, I mean like, they do not. Do not soak these. They'll just rot and die. And they will do best for you in full sun to part sun. Even part shade. Depending on how hot your climate is. How intense your sun is. So when in doubt, morning, early afternoon sun and then filtered light throughout the rest of the day. Just to be safe. Or even if you can give them 5 or 6 hours of morning sun if you have that type of space available. Do that. They'll appreciate it. And then with that filtered sun in the afternoon, like I said. And they will tolerate some light shade. Hence the filtered part. Go ahead and make sure to give the Sempervivums sandy, gritty soil. Something that has really sharp drainage. Sharp drainage really just means soil that drains very, very quickly. So when you water them, the water will rush through it really fast. That was kind of weird with my hand shooting in there. Sorry. Because they don't like to be soaking wet or sitting in water. Now, that doesn't mean though that you can go a really long time without watering them. Unfortunately, that's just not the case. They do like to be watered consistently. Just not drenched. And they don't like their soil to stay wet for a very long time. These guys are going to typically be evergreen for you and they spread, reproduce by offshoots. Those would be the chicks. Typically you'll see these bloom for you in June or July. Mine usually bloom a little bit earlier than that. They are monocarpic. Monocarpic, meaning once they bloom, they die. Not the entire plant, just the main plant. That would be the hen. The chicks live on. Hence the name. Sempervivum. Semper meaning always. And vivum meaning living or alive. Always alive. Always living. So even though the mother goes ahead, puts up this awesome, really cool looking flower stalk. The entire center of the plant comes up and has really neat flowers on top of it. It does that and then the center dies. But that's okay. Because all of these little offshoots, the little chicks, they will go ahead and fill in that space. If it looks like the mother plant is rotting, go ahead and kind of pluck that out. But be careful not to disturb it too much because you'll end up ripping up some of the root system from the chicks. And that's what's so fun about these guys. They just keep on growing and growing and growing. They put off all their little babies and with that you just end up having these really cool patches of nice rosette shaped succulents. There's so much you can do with them. You can use them in topiaries, in wreaths. I mean, just go on to Garden Answers. Go look at Laura from Garden Answers channel. I mean, she like lives for these things. And when you have a more mature chick coming off, they're actually very, very, very simple to propagate. You can cut them or even usually they'll just pop right off. Just like so. You can lay it directly on top of the soil and it will take off into a new plant. You can go ahead and let it callus over just to be safe if things are really wet in your area and go ahead and stick that stem down in the dirt to anchor it in. And then that will mature into your new mother plant and all your little babies will come running out from the sides. And as you can see here, there are tons and tons, tons of different varieties. Lots of different shapes and colors. The shapes remain kind of the same, just some are more tight and some are more open. But they come in different sizes, lots of different colors. Sometimes your leaves are more wide in petal shapes. Sometimes they're going to be more narrow. Sometimes they'll be cupped in real tight like a Brussels sprout with webbing on them. Those look really cool. Those are usually called like cobweb or spiderweb. I'll insert a picture here. They're just super cool. See, unfortunately I do not have a name for the varieties in these large pans back here. They were just assorted pans of Sempervivums from Walmart. They don't have names. This one right here looks like Pacific Blue to me, but I can't say for sure without actually having the label. These three, however, from the Chick Charms series, I'll get on their website. They have so many awesome hybrids and really neat colors. These are a very vibrant red and the variety is called Cherry Baby. That's these three. They have another one that's really cool called Gold Nugget, but it's just they have a rainbow and it looks really, really neat. And then here, this one is Sempervivum Rita Jane. I like its reddish pinkish hue, the variation in color, and the fact that it's red but smaller because usually the reds, this variety called Red Robin, I believe, they're usually bigger with the more flat paddle shaped leaves, whereas this one has that red in there and just so much variation in the leaves. I mean, look at how neat that is, how they go from kind of this grayish pretty color to a red at the tip. There's some hints of yellow and green. And temperatures influence the color as well. Cooler temperatures, they may not be quite as vibrant, but you're going to see the variegation more heavily in ones that have variegation, which would be kind of applicable to this guy, this guy, this guy. Once the sun gets really, really intense and the temperatures start to pick up, the colors on those particular three might fade a little bit into something that looks really, really neat. They're just really fun and easy plants to grow. Hopefully everybody gives them a shot. If you live north of zone 8, echeverias are always an option. Don't let any of these guys get too wet. I like to water mine in the early morning right before the sun gets on them. I try to keep the water out of the center because you don't really want that to settle in there. If I know there's going to be rain in the forecast, then sometimes I'll just leave them be and let weather take care of them. But when we go through spells where we don't have any rain for a few weeks, then that changes things. And I make sure to water them lightly. It's not like other plants where I make sure to soak them. Their roots can go nice and nice and deep. These are a succulent. And they have kind of a shallow root system, so I don't need to drench and drench and drench them. Water them lightly. I go away and come back and just water them very lightly again. Doing that seems to do the trick for them just fine. Another thing that's really cool with these guys, when people put them in their strawberry planters, that looks pretty neat too. Hens and chicks are not always that fond of hot, humid summers, but there are hybrids out there that are supposed to do better. Some of which actually have coming in the mail here hopefully in a few days. They probably won't make it into this video, but one of the varieties is called El Toro Unicorn and I think that one's called Carmen. And I will go ahead and link those right here. They're from Plant and Delight's nursery. They've trialed them where they live in the south and they seem to do well for them in the hot, humid climate. And I've grown El Toro before and it did very well given the high heat and humidity. Sometimes when things get really toasty and humid and muggy, different varieties struggle a little bit. Because they do kind of prefer a drier atmosphere. Because, you know, succulent. So yeah, if that doesn't make it into this video, then check out the upcoming plant haul and you'll see those plants there. Alright, but there we go. Fun little spotlight, little care video on a very common and awesome hardy succulent. Comment down below. Let me know what you do with your hens and chicks. People always have some really fun creations they toss together with these guys. Alright, and don't forget to leave a thumbs up. It helps the video so, so much. I really appreciate every single one of those, by the way. Subscribe as well. Upload multiple times a week. I will link my social media stuff down there below. Down there in the roots of the video. Follow me, I'll follow you back and we can look at each other's plant pictures. Alright, but that's gonna do it. I hope everybody's doing well. And as always everybody, keep on growing!