Your semp has the appearance that it is rotting. From the picture that is what it looks like. The leaves appear to be turning soft from the bottom moving up. If true, it is basically a death sentence. Probably too much moisture and heat at the same time.

I'm not very familiar with your climate, but it seems too warm and too humid for these cold-hardy, alpine plants that actually thrive by having freezing temperatures in Winter. They don't do very well indoors either... sorry.

My advice is to forget about Sempervivus where you live. Instead try some of the more tender succulents like Echeverias and others.

I was thinking the same thing about the Semp. I thought most were only hardy up to about Zone 9. Anything above that is just too hot for them.

the second one looks like a portulaca...I could be wrong but the buds look like mine.

Let me see if I can find you a pic.

As far as the semp goes, mine don't like full sun, they look better with *some* sun and some shade.

For some reason, mine also don't like a super well drained mix like you've got there. I put them in a mixture of bark fines and perlite. The ones I have planted in the ground, are in regular ol' garden soil, amended with perlite.

You've got nothing to lose by unpotting and repotting in a different mix as well as a change of location to a shadier place outside.

Like feral cats, I've NEVER been able to get them to be happy inside.

The mix I'm using has some coco coir and garden soil in it as well, so I haven't repotted.

This is a closer view of the stem and the dry leaves now. The reason I'm uncertain about rot is because the leaves are crispy, not mushy.

I am thinking I'll keep it in here with the lower temperatures and less sun, till it gets a bit cooler outside. In a few weeks the temperatures should fall a bit, and I can move it out into a slightly shadier spot.

If I see mushy leaves, then perhaps I could consider beheading?

I understand that it isn't ideal for my location, but I'm still going to do all that I can to try and keep it alive!

Thanks for all your help, everyone. :)

If there are no more mushy leaves, that's a good sign. If there is rot, you will see one leaf turn mushy, then another, then another. Those leaves will dry up and turn crispy. So you may have rot even when there are no mushy leaves for a while. If they stop mushing, then you're good. It's natural for the lower leaves to dry up and disappear, so it can be difficult to say if it is rotting or not. If the leaves are disappearing faster than their replacements... you likely have a problem. Your first picture looks like the situation is very bad, but the last one doesn't look so bad. In the first picture there were too many leaves dying at once. In the last picture, maybe you've just pulled off all the dead leaves, which is OK to do. But if they keep dying, it's all over.

Thanks everyone, for pitching in.

I think this picture will clarify questions of soil and such:

I took it out of the soil to check the roots, because I saw a leaf get mushy (on the right). On the left at the back you can see how they get crispy afterwards. The soil is a mix of pumice + perlite and coco coir + soil, so I don't think it either retains too much water or dries too quickly. But the leaves are definitely going faster than they're being replaced. I just don't understand it, because the roots look healthy to me! I thought it might need beheading if it was rotting, but the roots don't look rotted at all!

I haven't watered this plant for at least two weeks now, but the leaf death hasn't stopped, only slowed since those two disastrous days where it was first rained on and left out in full sun ending up KFC-level deep fried. Temperature that day would've been about 35 deg Celsius, so about 95 F. Today is about the same, with 49% humidity, though it's indoors at the moment.

Another change of location is of course worth trying. I will move it this evening to a shaded spot on the terrace. But I worry that as an alpine plant, Delhi is just not going to work for it. :(

Sanjana

They do not like too much heat & humidity, and I believe you should try moving them into more shaded spot. They should still get some sunlight, but maybe just early morning. We had some hot summer this year, 36 (or more?) days over 30*C temps - many around 35 up to 38*C. Humidity fluctuated, often much higher than 50%. Over all, my semps look pretty good - photos I posted are very recent.

If it rains a lot, few of the lowest leaves look like the one on the right in your last photo, but there wasn't much rain this year. Roots look good on your semp. Not sure what else to suggest...

Thanks so much for your input Rina. I've put it outside in a shady corner, let's give it some time and see. Temperatures are only going to go down now!