Again Slovenia

My name is Aleksander and I come from carst region in Slovenia. It's not that Sempervivums are native here, but you can see them growing near every house, on stone walls or gardens. Even in cementaries! Mostly this is S. tectorum, but some people grow other species as well.

I have had this plant in my garden for years now, they are all what you call lost label plants. But since I've seen photos of some cultivars in this forum I want to have more. That's why I've joined the forum.

Alex&er the gr8, !

Welcome!!! It would be nice if you could help us with S. tectorum localities in Karst! Do you know any?

Hello Aleksander,

I believe that the semps grown in gardens and graveyards are traditionally very few clones, perhaps only one or two. Only in recent years there is a very big increase in the number of Sempervivum cultivars sold, unfortunately nearly only "lost label" plants. Because of this it is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out which ones are the "old sempervivum" and which ones are something "new from the shop". I think that it makes sense to ask around and get a few plants from people who have them for "decades" or "who knows how long" and keep growing these as "historical Sempervivum" even though they are also "no name plants".

For this reason I have a clone which came from a half-broken and no longer maintained plant-pot at a ruin of a shop which is closed for years (probably the building + plant pot will one day be gone all together) and another one which comes from a village wall (yes, both in the Karst region) where there used to be a very large number of plants - I visited the place recently and the wall no longer exists. These are cultivated Sempervivum and clearly different from the wild Slovenian S. tectorum.

With regards to such places you have to, of course, be sure that either really no-one cares about the plants (this was clearly so in the case of the ruin of the shop) or ask the owner if you can take some small plants (which I think will be most often OK then). I hear too many stories about plants stolen from Slovenian gardens, unfortunately ...

illustrator wrote: I hear too many stories about plants stolen from Slovenian gardens, unfortunately ...

This is because people considered that the plant will grow only if it is stolen.

There is even a good reason for that: a stolen plant is likely well adapted to the local growing circumstances, so there is a much better chance that it will grow than a plant from a supermarket (which is other dehydrated and has been suffering from a lack of light in a too warm indoor climate).

Semps can stand a lot of such suffering though. Even when totally unrecognisable because of being indoors, they can survive when planted outside ...