Winter is here - protection for our sempervivum

I don't spleeping (see here: https://sempervivum.aforumfree.com/suggestions-how-to-make-the-forum-better-f135/do-you-sleep-t1060.htm ) but my semp collection wel !

I protect my plants because we have a humid winter in Belgium and S. tectorum, S. arachnoideum and S. ciliosum are very fragile.

A pvc protection or a glas is enough for that.



or near a wall



A part of my collection is in a little garden house





Other are in a wooden planter



And the other on the roof ....



And you ? How do you protect your plants?

Great to see your collection this way, Cromaphyto!

And what about my answer to your question how do I protect my plants. Sometimes I put plastic sheets over them when there are days and days of rain. Normally we have excessive rain in November only.

Last Sunday we've had - 17 °C in the morning, today, 4 mornings after that 5 °C - and lots of rain ... 20 cm of snow from Saturday wanished into the thin air. the temperature diffenrence is 22 °C. And it's raining cats and dogs!

Great collection Chromaphyto!

We also have wet winters in Croatia, but i don't protect my Sempervivums.
Plants like Orostachys, Sedum palmerii or Delosperma nubigenum are protected. They are next to the house under the roof.
I use a good drainage (but that's why i have to water more in summer).
Last winter i had no losses

I have many young semps that I plan to cover for the winter. I have roofing metal that I want to cover the plants with. If I raise the metal a few inches will they survive being in the dark for several months?

Markb, to cover semps for the (whole?) winter with roofing metal, though only few inches high will harm you plants - at least that is what I beleive. Beside "losing the colour" because of dark conditions, you have to expect some other unpleasant things, too. If you live in an area with fog and if the water evapotrates from the ground under the smps ... the cover will "hold this water" close to plants. Maybe you can cover plants on rainy / snowy days only?

It seemed like a bad idea just wanted to get some feedback on it. I talked with Jack from Cavendish perennials in Canada. He puts his in bulb crates with glass on top. He uses old windows. There is about 6 inches of spaces
for the plants to breath. He says they don't heat up because of the air space. I live in northeast USA. The plants are in 4 inch plastic pots and we can have rain in the winter. I want to take precautions as I have hundreds of newly propagated plants.

here the issue is not winter wet, but only cold;
most plants are fully hardy for our cold, but i cannot leave plants in pots exposed, they must be sunk into the soil to survive the winter..
we can have lows of -40C/-40F, and we usually have snow cover for the middle of winter, but we can easily have -20C or colder when there is no snow..
it is not unusual to have some rain in fall when temps are near freezing, and even freezing soon after..it doesn't seem to bother the semps...

i know they can take the conditions in eastern north america, but it does depend on soil mixes etc.. as mentioned above, i'd try to cover with something that keeps moisture off, but allows air..i don't think light matters while the plants are dormant, but many months of cover could be a problem..
i also heard the recommendation, i think from gerard dumont, to tip the pots a bit, so water cannot sit on the surface, but will run away; his comment was that plants can take wetness at the roots, as long as they plant itself, and where it joins the soil do not stay wet.

Here in northern Michigan we cover ours with pine needles or leaf litter, some folks dont cover them at all or there stored in a greenhouse unheated or garage. Heres mine, in my just started winter hardy outdoor cactus garden, not filled up yet with plants but this is how i started it.

This is how it looked late summer 2010 after making the garden.


Coverd for there first winter November 2010



This is how it looked at the begining of spring 2011 right after i cleaned off the pine needles.









And here almost ready to be coverd again for winter 2011
Few more weeks and the pine needles get put back on. Opuntia cactus pads always start getting VERY wrinkly and lay flat durring fall winter months durring winter dormancy they always look like there dead LOL!! Then come spring as soon as i uncover them and they get there first rain fall and sunshine POOF there back up full and growing quickly.









Notice the growth and color change and growth of the semps since i started that garden..

When you go to sleep, you lie down too. So why can't opuntias?

Hello everybody,

This will be my first Winter with Semps, and so I've been reading this section, to see what people recommend for seeing our little friends through, until the Spring.

I know that it's only the middle of August, but it's nice to have everything ready.

Looking down this section, and seeing pictures of snow piled on top of peoples Semp storage, I think my plants will be well looked after.

The few that normally live outside, ["no label" Semps planted in a small rockery], will be covered with a sheet of clear corrugated roofing plastic, and the rest will be on benches, in a greenhouse.

At the moment, most of my Semps that live in pots, spend a lot of time outside in the fresh air, getting a few splashes of rain, although they were sheltered in the greenhouse during the recent torrential rain that we had here in the UK.

I've also 15 or 16 Mint plants, [Mentha], in buckets, and it's the first over-wintering for them, but they'll be cut down to about 2 to 3 cm before going inside, and they will stand on the floor, under the benches, but near to the glass, so that they get sufficient light.

Can I ask - should I leave my greenhouse door and roof vent open for the Semps - I know that the Mints will be happy with plenty of fresh air.

The only thing that I need to take into my flat for the Winter, I think, in an unheated bedroom, is my one and only Echiveria, plus 135 Fuchsia cuttings!!

John
[Staffordshire, Central UK]

I definately have far better experience with uncovered plants, in the open. But I live in an area where nights are cold and snowcover frequent. Low winter temperatures are normal for semps, remember, they are originally from very exposed rocky places at high altitudes. Only be carefull about wet soil, not at all about sunshine, low temperatures or snow.

Barracuda_50, your plants look like they are stretching for light. They are very lush and green for "just after winter" and a sudden coldspell can harm them when they are like this. In early spring mine are shorter and more compact, but then also less vulnerable.

My Semps survived in my greenhouse OK, all through the Winter, I left the roof vent open, and the door halfway open.

They lost a lot of their normal colour, and nearly all them went dark red - I thought that they were dying, but after a long period of cold weather here in the UK, the sun woke them up, and in the last few weeks their colours have returned, and I've been busy, potting up lots of offsets.

It seemed as if they were being held back on a bungee cord, and now, they have been released, and are racing through the Spring, making up for lost time!

I put some of the un-labelled ones into an area about 1200mm by 600mm in my garden last year, with some alpines, and I've lost two, but I replaced them yesterday, with others.

I'm very pleased with them, and I'm now ready to get about 14 or 15 more, to enlarge my collection.

My only problem now is, what can I do with all the baby plants?

As far as I know, there's no collectors near here, it's a very specialised hobby.

John

John, have you ever consider selling unlabeled varieties?
Here's a FB group in English I started: https://www.facebook.com/groups/124618604350030/
There is also a group about Sempervivums in languges of former Yugoslavia countries here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/411247545565128/ (all post MUST be translated into Slovene or Croatian or Serbian)
Croatia is entering EU in a couple of months and I know popple are interested in buying semps there.