Hi there.. I have 16 pots of semps on my second floor balcony that faces south/southwest... they were doing great until today.. they are all frozen :( I did everything I could to keep them dry and the snow off them, but the temperature did them in. I went out an hour ago to block them in even more to keep the blowing snow we may get tonight off them, but I think I'm too late. It's pretty cold out there and there wasn't even a breeze!! My poor semps... I was rather fond of them.. any chance they may recover in the spring??
What makes you think these are dead? Have they gone all brown and mushy? Seems like even if they did get damaged somehow this wouldn't show up much until after a thaw. Most are quite hardy, called houseleek because of them being planted on roofs in Europe, where they are native in the mountains. I've got some growing in a clay shoe planter.
Hi Ron, thank-you for your reply. They are frozen solid - sempsicles... like rocks! Still green though. I thought one looked a bit shriveled... and when I touched it....hard.. all of them. A couple years ago we had a cold snap and a bit of snow ended up on a couple of the pots and looked dead, by late spring they were bouncing back. Now.. I don't know. Wish'd I had brought them indoors, but the cats would have had a blast. We've not had cold temps like this in Vancouver in decades.
Would not have been happy inside. Should have no problem being outside, even in small pots. As I mentioned a mountain plant in the wild, hardy about 4 or 5 Zones colder than Vancouver.
For sure these things have sailed thru arctic outbreaks here before, they can freeze solid and thaw back out with no problem. Actually I would welcome a blanket of snow over mine...most things dislike the dry winds more than the actual low temperatures, and the snow acts somewhat like a blanket of insulation as well as windbreak. It does seem strange due to the succulent nature of semps...seems like they should just collapse after freezing then thawing. Other succulent deals do precisely that...not sure if my echeveria has been kept warm enough in the greenhouse, but that's a similar looking plant that is pretty hopeless in freezing conditions...just a pile of mush soon after freezing.
I was reading about echeveria yesterday, and how they do poorly in sub zero temperatures. I have this plant, a Calico Hearts..leaves looks sort of like jade, I need to water it weekly... if I did that to my jade, it'd be rotting. Picked it up at Safeway for a few bucks...gave it direct sun, big mistake, but the surviving plant is doing ok. I've got the semps under my patio furniture and some other stuff to keep the snow off them... worried initially if they got too full of snow, next sunny day they'd be full of water. Hopefully your echeveria makes out ok! Happy Holidays ~ enjoy the snow :)
sempervivums will do fine in just about any Canadian winter. Ive grown them on the ground in Nova scotia for years. ive had them for the past 2 winters here in the okanagan in pots and they have always thrived. I put them on the ground this year in my burm. I expect they will be fine. echeveria is a zone 9 plant. If it's outside in Vancouver now, its dead. technically they are only even zone 9 if its dry. alot of areas in the lower mainland are considered zone 9. but don't count on it.
It's been interesting weather around here to say the least. Looks like one big slush pile this morning. There are a couple I would hate to lose...don't know what they are called but I've never seen them again at any garden centres since I bought them 3 years ago. One... turns a dusky purpley/ slight blue in full sun... but goes green in winter. And not a very good producer of chicks. I think I managed to get 3-4 off it in the fall and repotted them into various other pots. But I can't tell now which ones they are as they look like the rest...lol... The other is a neat cobwebby type.. for the last 2 years, every time it put out new chicks.. the squirrel came along and neatly nipped them off their stems and that was that.. no chicks ever. I sure do enjoy them though :) I can't imagine them surviving NS winters... they are hardy little suckers!
Torbie, They will survive just fine through a Nova Scotian winter....they are very common in gardens here. My garden is full of them. My mother has some which grow in a crevice in a chunk of concrete, with no soil, and they have been there for several years now.
My sempervivum.. moldy! Some bought it.. pots got wet I guess from rain that blew in on the balcony, they festered and went fuzzy. Scooped them out and tossed away. Probably at this point, only about 15 individual plants lost. One hard to find fuzzy type (which had a totally different type of mold) and my very favorite entire pot, history :( .. oh well! Could be worse. I was very surprised at the root systems a few had developed, very long and a few inches in length.
