Houseleeks
Botanical name: Sempervivum
Houseleeks
Botanical name: Sempervivum
Description
Houseleeks are outdoor succulents that are valued for their resiliency and durability. They are tolerant plants that will continue to flourish even when forced to undergo drought, freezing temperatures, and poor soil conditions. The base plant forms a rosette that produces small offsets helping the plant to reproduce and spread rapidly. Flowers take about two to five years to blossom. The base plant dies after blooming but the offshoots live on.
Species of Houseleeks
Houseleeks 'Cotton Candy'
Houseleeks 'Cotton Candy' is a Sempervivum cultivar that grows in a fleshy-leafed rosette that spreads by producing smaller offshoot rosettes. This particular cultivar has green leaves tipped by a web-like spread of connected threads known as cilia. It was developed by Chris Hansen and is named for the resemblance of its fine webbed cilia to the famous candy.
Houseleeks 'Cherry Berry'
Houseleeks 'Cherry Berry' are outdoor succulents that are valued for their resiliency and durability. They are tolerant plants that will continue to flourish even when forced to undergo drought, freezing temperatures, and poor soil conditions. The base plant forms a rosette that produces small offsets helping the plant to reproduce and spread rapidly. Flowers take about two to five years to blossom. The base plant dies after blooming but the offshoots live on.
Houseleeks 'Rocknoll Rosette'
Houseleeks 'Rocknoll Rosette' is a type of houseleek. This succulent perennial cactus is used either as a houseplant or in well-drained rock garden type beds, and this variety is particularly decorative with its wine-red and green foliage. The color intensifies in cooler weather.
Houseleeks 'Carmen'
Houseleeks 'Carmen' are outdoor succulents that are valued for their resiliency and durability. They are tolerant plants that will continue to flourish even when forced to undergo drought, freezing temperatures, and poor soil conditions. The base plant forms a rosette that produces small offsets helping the plant to reproduce and spread rapidly. Flowers take about two to five years to blossom. The base plant dies after blooming but the offshoots live on.
Houseleeks 'Cranberry Cocktail'
Houseleeks 'Cranberry Cocktail' is a Sempervivum cultivar with dark burgundy, cranberry-colored leaves tapering to green tips. It is one of the Chick Charms family developed by Chris Hansen. A single rosette can reach up to 30 cm wide and 8 cm tall, quite large for a succulent!
Houseleeks 'Hart 8'
Houseleeks 'Hart 8' is a cultivar of Sempervivum with a distinct coloration of two-colored leaves, which are pale green at the bottom and shift to an attractive burgundy at their tips. This cultivar is part of the Chick Charms series developed by Chris Hansen. These tough succulent plants thrive in parts of the garden with poor soil and drainage where other plants can’t grow.
Houseleeks 'Silver Suede'
Houseleeks 'Silver Suede' is a distinctive member of the celebrated Chick Charms series of houseleek cultivars carefully bred for their unique colors. As you'd anticipate from the name, this hybrid features silvery-grey leaves covered with dense hairs that give them a suede-like feel. These leaves are the main attraction of this houseleek, especially since it needs several years of growth before it produces flowers which can range in color from red to yellow, pink, or white.
Houseleeks 'Key Lime Kiss'
Houseleeks 'Key Lime Kiss' is a member of the Chick Charms family of copyrighted houseleek cultivars. It is immediately recognizable because of its eponymous lime-green leaves with a few purple leaf tips. The plant has an artichoke-like closed-leaf morphology. This succulent is an excellent rock garden addition, especially as part of a display of several different-colored houseleek cultivars.
Houseleeks 'Plum Parfait'
Versatile, hardy, and drought-tolerant, the houseleeks 'Plum Parfait' is known for its vibrant color. Its lavender to deep purple flowers surely led to its common name. Considered a collector's cultivar, the houseleeks 'Plum Parfait' makes a great addition for gardeners who would like a statement piece.
Common houseleek 'Red Beauty'
Common houseleek 'Red Beauty' is a hardy succulent with red-tipped, green rosettes. It has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries. The name 'Sempervivum' means 'always alive', referring to its ability to survive in difficult conditions without water.
Houseleeks 'Mint Marvel'
Houseleeks 'Mint Marvel' is one of the "Chick Charms" family of patented houseleek cultivars developed for their unique colors. In this case, as the name suggests, houseleeks 'Mint Marvel' has leaves that are predominantly a pale green color with distinctive red leaf tips. This is a striking container plant and is also excellent for rock gardens, especially when combined with one or more different colored houseleeks.
Houseleeks 'Ruby Heart'
Houseleeks 'Ruby Heart' is a colorful houseleek variety, bred in the USA in 1969 by Kevin C. Vaughn. It is a medium-sized, semi-open, mat-forming Sempervivum, characteristic for its coloration — the bluish-green rosettes are flushed with rosy red at the base. The color pattern and intensity depend on the season and the weather, and they are the most intense in cooler temperatures. The flowers are pinkish-purple and appear in midsummer.
Hens and chicks
Each hens and chicks leaf has dense little tomenta around its margin. When light is sufficient, the leaves wrap up tightly, like a beautiful lotus flower. With the right temperatures, the surface of each leaf turns a bright crimson. The hens and chicks is sensitive to high temperatures and goes into dormancy in the heat. It requires a shaded, dry, and well-ventilated environment to survive the summer season.
Houseleek 'Sir William Lawrence'
Houseleek 'Sir William Lawrence' is an evergreen succulent offering clusters of pink flowers and fleshy, gray-green leaves that show maroon tips under the right growing conditions. It is a cultivar of Sempervivum calcareum. Gardeners enjoy this variety as it is deer-tolerant, drought-resistant, rabbit-resistant, and tolerant of dry or rocky soil.
Woolly cobweb houseleek
The woolly cobweb houseleek is hardy and can overwinter without any problems, even when the temperature drops to as low as -5 ℃. It has many white silk threads connected between its leaf tips that look like dense spider webs. The woolly cobweb houseleek is not resistant to heat and goes into dormancy when the temperature gets higher than 30 ℃. At that time, it needs to be placed in a cool, ventilated environment, and its water supply should be cut off, in order to help the plant survive a hot summer.
Mountain house-leek
As a member of the Hen and Chicks family, the mountain house-leek (Sempervivum montanum) spreads baby offset plants from a "mother hen," giving this succulent an adorable clustered appearance that makes for a great houseplant. The foliage of each is presented in tight rosettes that slowly mature into a rotund ball of fleshy foliage.
Moroccan houseleek
Moroccan houseleek (*Sempervivum 'Atlanticum'*) is a succulent species that is considered easy to grow and often cultivated in rock gardens and containers. Outdoors, moroccan houseleek can tolerate frost in the winter and grows best with copious amounts of outdoor light. This species produces many offset shoots compared to other succulents.
Houseleek 'Bronze Pastel'
Houseleek 'Bronze Pastel' (Sempervivum 'Bronze Pastel') is a succulent popularly grown in rock gardens and as a houseplant. Houseleek 'Bronze Pastel' is considered a hardy species that can withstand frost. This species grows best in gritty soils. Houseleek 'Bronze Pastel' is also known as hens and chicks.
Houseleeks 'Cosmic Candy'
Houseleeks 'Cosmic Candy' is a member of the celebrated "Chick Charms" family of houseleek cultivars that have been bred for their unique colors. In this case, the plant's candy-colored leaves have brown-red exteriors and green centers with gold highlights appearing in direct sunlight. This is a popular container and rock garden plant among gardeners.
Roller
Roller is a unique rosette-shaped succulent plant that produces small globular bulblets called 'rollers' around its base. These little 'rollers' can be planted and give rise to new plants. It is used as an ornamental plant and has medicinal uses for treating various ailments.
Common houseleek 'Chocolate Kiss'
Common houseleek 'Chocolate Kiss' is named for its burgundy-brown color. It also grows hot-pink flowers. This cultivar is part of the Chick Charms collection by breeder Chris Hansen. This variety is used in containers and gardens due to its unique color, pairing well with other varieties of this plant.
Houseleeks 'Commander Hay'
Houseleeks 'Commander Hay' is a houseleek with a notable deep maroon leaf color accented by hay-green leaf tips. This carefully bred color scheme contrasts well with other houseleek cultivars and a rock garden is a great place to compare and contrast them. It is a cross between the 'Ornatum' and 'Atropurpureum' houseleeks.
Common houseleek 'Red Rubin'
Common houseleek 'Red Rubin' is a hardy succulent with stunning maroon leaves. It thrives in hot, dry locations on rocky outcrops or walls. Its leaves have a rosette shape and are covered in fine hairs which can trap dew or water droplets, giving it the nickname 'live-forever'.
Houseleeks 'Appletiti'
Houseleeks 'Appletiti' is a succulent plant native to the alpine regions of Europe. Its leaves are apple green in color and form charming rosettes that grow up to 4cm in diameter. This plant is drought-resistant and also deer-resistant, making it perfect for rock gardens and other low-maintenance landscape designs.
Houseleeks 'Black'
Houseleeks 'Black' is a succulent of the Sempervivum ‘Hens and Chicks’ family. This particular cultivar has a distinctive color scheme that changes shade during the year. In spring, the fleshy center of the leaf rosette is lime green in color with deep ochre-red leaf tips. But in winter the leaf coloration deepens to a dark purple and that most of the plant.
Houseleek 'Greenii'
The houseleek 'Greenii' is the smallest houseleek cultivar and it has the deepest green color of all houseleeks. This attractive plant is grown for its succulent leaves and it makes an excellent addition to rock gardens and containers.
Houseleek 'Mrs Giuseppi'
Houseleek 'Mrs Giuseppi' is a houseleek cultivar that is similar to the parent plant except that it is generally shorter and has a broader spread. It grows up to 15 cm instead of 20 cm but spreads up to 60 cm instead of 30 cm, making it an excellent low-growing space-filler in rock gardens and edging.
Hen-and-chicks
Hen-and-chicks (Sempervivum 'Bedivere') is a drought-tolerant succulent species that has been historically planted in gardens for horticultural purposes. Hen-and-chicks grows best in gravely soil and will not rot if kept dry in between waterings. This species is valued for its colorful leaves, which change color over the course of the year.
Hens and chicks
Hens and chicks is an African succulent. The parent rosettes of this plant are the hens, and the chicks are the smaller offsets that grow from them. This plant dies after flowering and is ideal for rock gardens, container gardens, and rock walls.
Houseleek
Houseleek is a lithophytic and cold-hardy succulent native to the European Alps. This succulent is coveted for its rosette-forming grey-green leaves with maroon tips that will look superb in a rock garden. A mature succulent dies after flowering, but it produces new plants through offshoots before it ends its lifecycle.
Teneriffe houseleek
Teneriffe houseleek (Sempervivum ciliosum) is a frost-tolerant succulent species indigenous to southeastern Europe. The teneriffe houseleek is cultivated in gardens, where it is known to grow optimally in full sunlight and well-drained soil. This species' Latin name, Sempervivum ciliosum, means having small fringes.
Hens and Chicks
The pale blue white leaves of hens and Chicks do indeed resemble the color scheme of ocean ice. This impressive leaf coloration makes this succulent a popular houseplant and warm weather garden plant.
Ingram
Ingram (Sempervivum 'Amanda') is a succulent species that originates in the United Kingdom. Ingram is cultivated as an ornamental species in pots and in rock gardens. It grows best in plentiful sunlight and is considered a frost hardy species. Like other succulents, this species will undergo root rot if allowed to sit in standing water for long periods of time. Well-drained soil can prevent root rot in ingram.
Cobweb hens and chicks
Cobweb hens and chicks (*Sempervivum arachnoideum*) is a plant species native to the Alps, Apennines, and Carpathian Mountains. Cobweb hens and chicks is a popular garden species and is most suitable for green roofs, living walls, and rock gardens. This species grows best in sunlight in well-drained soils with weekly watering.
Common houseleek
“Sempervivum” means “always living” in Latin. Adapted to droughts, baking sun, and cold winters of their native south European mountains, the common houseleek can truly live through almost anything. It has been grown for centuries on roofs of European houses as it was believed to deter lightning strikes. Young houseleeks grow around the mother plant, earning it the alternative name “Hens and Chicks.”
Sempervivum ciliosum var. micevskii
Sempervivum ciliosum var. micevskii are outdoor succulents that are valued for their resiliency and durability. They are tolerant plants that will continue to flourish even when forced to undergo drought, freezing temperatures, and poor soil conditions. The base plant forms a rosette that produces small offsets helping the plant to reproduce and spread rapidly. Flowers take about two to five years to blossom. The base plant dies after blooming but the offshoots live on.
Sempervivum stenopetalum
Sempervivum stenopetalum are outdoor succulents that are valued for their resiliency and durability. They are tolerant plants that will continue to flourish even when forced to undergo drought, freezing temperatures, and poor soil conditions. The base plant forms a rosette that produces small offsets helping the plant to reproduce and spread rapidly. Flowers take about two to five years to blossom. The base plant dies after blooming but the offshoots live on.
Care Guide for Houseleeks
Scientific Classification
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