Protect them with some frost protection blankets that you should be able to find at your local garden center...

Little plant,
I'm in the mountains of WV and I protect none of my semps and sedums. The only thing I do is go out in early spring and during longer thaws and take a fork and shove any root systems which have hooved up due to frost heavage back down into the ground.

Look me up in the spring. I have tons of named sedums and semps... we could trade,

Chris

Only excess water can harm semps, not the llow temperatures ... As long asd the soil is not too wet, they are o.k..

I am a big sempervivum fan, I have 1.700 different plants and some you can see on ym blog.

I trade ww - if anyone is interested, send me your list and ask for mine!

Here is a link that might be useful: my sempervivum blog

Renee,

In Slovenia which is just northeast of Italy, you might have -10C as the coldest winter temperature. I live in the US zone 5, around -20F = -30C for days, though not recently. Do you know any Sempervivums which can survive that -30C temperature without reliable snow cover?

Thanks!
Bernd

I am in zone 4a, and I haven't had any problems overwintering any of my semps. This winter I left an 8x8 inch pan with semps in it sitting on my patio/deck that sits 2ft above ground. Temps reached -27F, and while there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground at the time, it had blown off the deck. And of course, the underside of the pan was completely exposed.

We have gone through a week of early Feb thaw, and the semps are fine. Admittedly, probably not as nice as my others will be, but the green foliage is still healthy.

As do most of my plants, these semps have a hard life, and don't get the attention to grow as well as they could. Could it be other factors besides temperature that is causing your overwintering problem? Soil too rich, too much water, etc.?

If you are really in zone 5, your probable lowest temp should be -10 to -20F. http://mgonline.com/zonemap.html Certainly not -20F for days, let alone just the nights. There is a small part of NY that has zone 3-4 temps. Is that where you are?

Rick

Rick,

Thank you for your reply, and also thanks that you might have participated in your chapter sending the seeds this year to me.

Yes, I live in zone 5b, but we did not have -20F the last years. I also read that in our area the zones got moved North by half a zone last year, so I might live now in zone 5, north of Albany. My hens& chicks are usually crowded by other plants, I water them occasionally, but they tend to get forgotten. I grew a group of very small green ones a few years ago from NARGS seeds and they are doing well. So it seems a combination of things. Probably a best practice would be to have a dedicated sunny corner with gritty soil in the rock-garden which can not be overrun by other plants.
Thanks!

Bernd