Hi Aloha,

While you wait for GardenChloe's expert advise I will chime in with my results.

We do give supplemental water on a drip system but they do start blooming prior to turning it on in the spring. So I'm surprised yours has never bloomed, not even in the spring. Maybe try posting a picture of where it is in the yard and then a close up of the plant.

I have two types of purple ice plants. For me the shorter one starts blooming earlier and more heavily. However it is also in a hotter area with more direct sunlight.

This is a picture of the short stubby foliage one. It starts blooming very early.

The longer foliage one blooms later and more sparsely. This picture is the right side of a bed.

This picture is the left side of the same bed. Each probably got three of the almost single stem plants.

This is a close up of the foliage on the long one.

Both have spread but in the case of the short stubby one I put in 3 plants. In the long one I bought one of those tiny plant six pacs and spread them around in two spots.

Hi, aloha2009

i do agree with mmmm12 that you should water your ice plants little more than just rain. Mine are right next to my lawn thus I don't have additional drip line for them. If you like, I'd love to stop by sometime to propagate them with you.

mmmm12,

I have the taller ones. Again, I agree with you that the shorter ones bloom a lot earlier. My Fire Spinners which are shorter seem to have bloomed so much earlier.

I just bought a Lavender Ice Plant yesterday. The color is kinda between my purple one and Mesa Verde. I will be planting it tomorrow. I am sooo excited!

Gardenchloe, I will start watering the iceplant once a week and watch carefully to see if I see anything happens. I can back off or increase it, if it gets worse. That is very kind of you to volunteer to come over to propagate it but I'm thinking the plant is too small and under stress to do any propagating - I think that was one of the problems that led me to this problem in the first place. I thought it would recover but it never has. I may just start all over with another new one if I don't see something this year. I love your (and mmmm2's) pics!

I was going to try and take a picture from the phone but couldn't see how to download it to the Houzz app. The area gets a lot of sun and has the hot retaining wall on 2 sides (the hens and chicks love it).

Hi, ahola2009

I would start with watering two to three times a week if the area is that sunny. I just planted two more ice plants this morning in the same area where my other ice plants are and noticed the soil was very moist in the morning but just very well drained. Good luck! I will post some pictures when they get established!

If I needed to be watering 2-3 times per week, it's no wonder they weren't doing much but existing. I watered them this morning, and I will include them in my hand watering.

Gardenchloe are you going to torture me some more with your iceplant pics :)

Aloha2009,

To be honest with you, I was a bit tortured by mmmm12's pictures so I bought some more ice plant babies yesterday. Lol. =)

I bought a Hot Pink Wonder and a Yellow Nubigenum. I also took a picture of my neighbor's Fire Spinner which I can share. Aren't they insanely beautiful?

Aloha, those are gorgeous! I've never seen them in the garden centers so will have to keep my eye out.

We had some sumacs cleared out last week from a rock bed next to a walkway. I was thinking of putting a rose in there but I've really enjoyed the openness and am now thinking of putting in ice plants. They seem to do so well in the high heat and need so little care plus put on a great show of color.

The area gets hit but the sprinkler system for the lawn and probably has a drip system. Maybe I can shut down the drip to save water and let them just go off the sprinkler system over spray.

Mmmm12,

I am not sure which area you live but I saw some Fire Spinners at both O'Tooles and Shelley's garden up North if you need any. I took some to the swap and am planning on propagating more for Fall swap again.

Thanks GardenChloe, I do live up north in Westminster so O'Tooles, Shelley's and Hilltop are my go-to garden centers.

I was at Shelley's yesterday and did not see them so will have to look again. I saw the white and lavender variety buy either missed the Fire Spinners or someone cleaned them out.

I'm having fun imagining what I will put in our newly cleared rock bed. But I probably won't buy anything yet. We had some help this weekend to clear out trees and bushes and do some trimming. They left a whale of a mess and basically walked off the job, leaving money behind because the contract was for more but they decided to steal some tools to make up for it. So I will have to hire someone else to clean up.

My husband could do it but he is sick right now and so things are stacking up behind him. We had a major supply side sprinkler system break and that needs fixed. I also have some red hot pokers that were bought to go in where we had bushes removed and some roses to go in where we had some trees removed. So I hate to add to the list of plants he needs to put in until we get what we already have planted. Probably on Mon. I will try to hire someone to clean up the mess but I prefer he do the planting because then we can get it a sprinkler connection at the same time.

Oh no, mmmm12, that sounds horrible! What a disaster.

Faith, as my mom said, good riddance to bad rubbish. One of my girlfriends, when I told her how they had been acting, suggested I pay them off and get them out of there. Which is essentially what happened but on their terms. I'm happy they are gone. I went to Walmart and replaced the stolen tools. I think I can hire some teenagers looking for work to do the clean up off the Nextdoor web site for less than what I would have paid them to do it. So I'm good.

I decided not to worry about it today. Maybe mid week or so I'll start looking to hire some help to clean up. Most of the problem was they left the branches and debris all around and walked on it all week so there are tons of little sticks and such in my rocks. When they did the bush trimming they tried to blow all the debris into the rocks so that has to be vac'd out with our blower vac. I don't like letting that stuff decay in there because then we have organic matter that grows weeds.

Yesterday I sat out next to my new fountain on a lounge chair in the shade and read a book - The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey. It was heavenly. The sound of rushing water this fountain makes exceeds any we have had in the past so I love it! The ever performing ice plants were blooming away in the background adding a lovely dash of strong color.