I leave hen and chickens out all winter and they come back every Spring! I live in Illinois.

Thank you, Marcy. Don't they freeze solid tho?' Do they maintain their full appearance through the winter, or do they go flat like mine did and then come back in the Spring?

lespirtle

You should be indicating your general location and/or at least a growing zone, please...

Sempervivums are hardy succulents. They do best when grown outdoors. As most plants and especially succulents, they need good drainage. They could be grown in ground or containers. All of my semps overwinter outdoors, and I have been growing them for many, many years. Temps here, in winter, are well below 0*F...and we get quite a bit of snow.

Thank you both. I live in Missouri, Zone 6. Mine are in small, individual, ceramic pots, each with a drainage hole. I will put them back outside, on my covered porch based on your information. But what should I do about the one which is flattened out and appears dead? Trim it off? Leave it alone? All of the others are fine. I wonder if it was the shock of bringing them indoors that caused this?

Photo of the damaged plant may help - it is difficult to tell what is wrong without seeing.

Your ceramic pots may crack outdoors unless they are frost resistant. Same with terracotta pots. I have semps in plastic, wood and even concrete containers. But if on covered porch, they will be protected, so you probably don't have to worry much. But plants should not stay dry whole winter long- just as any hardy plants, they need some moisture they would normally get from snow. If snow doesn't fall on them at all, you should put some on once in a while.

What kind of 'soil' are they potted in? If water retaining, that would probably cause problems. Semps and any other succulents do not like "wet feet". I use very gritty mix to assure good drainage in containers.

Not good at loading photos, but think about an octopus with his legs out that has been smashed by a hammer. I am actually a former nursery manager from Florida, but I know little about hens and chickens, so I appreciate all of your information. I believe that I lost that one plant from the stress (and my mistake) of moving it indoors to a temperature that was twenty five degrees warmer than where it had been on the porch. The rest of the plants seem fine and are enjoying the outdoors again.

Sempervivums are Alpine plants. They do not like very hight temp and could be bit of challenge to grow in those areas. They also appreciate some cooler periods. They are also monocarpic: if a rosette blooms, it will die after flowering. But they should be growing lots of offsets = chicks, what you maybe are referring to as octopus? :)

Sometimes, stolons are much longer so it looks like octopus :) These young plants could be separated and potted up - I usually leave them unless I want plants in another spot or want to gift some. IMO, they look great crowded - that's how they grow in their habitat.

Semps need same care as most of succulents: good drainage (container and the mix they are in); good light, good air circulation. Difference is in their hardiness: they easily survive winters outdoors in z4, some even z3. There are many, many species and hybrids and cultivars and many names that are often given 'willy-nilly'. Some look quite similar and may be difficult to ID.

Your plant may have bloomed and died naturally, or it could have rotted or it may have suffered some mechanical damage. As I said, not easy to diagnose illness without seeing patient :)

What died is a Sempervivum tectorum. And after careful analysis I have diagnosed the problem. It was simple movementus shocktorum. The little guy simply was not strong enough to take the sudden change in temperature and light. This often happens in cases like this, and when I ran my nursery I was often asked to diagnose situations like this for my customers. There are species of arecaceae that this occurs to in the climate in which I lived and worked, and usually when the problem is set in motion, it is often difficult to revive the "patient" as you put it. (: Thank you so much for all of your helpful information!

Not contradicting the idea that they're alpine. I'm sure they're native to cooler montane climates, but they're tough as nails. There was a bucket style planter around a mailbox of my pastor with them in Arkansas. I don't know if they were ever watered except by rain. They were planted by his wife, who has been gone for fiveteen years and they're still filling the surface of the bucket. They went through hail storms, droughts, record breaking high temperatures, etc...still ticking, like the energizer bunny.

To think they need to go inside for the winter in Z6 is pretty much absurd :)

From this site: (and many others...)

Sempervivum: a genus of hardy monocarpic alpine succulents in the family Crassulaceae. Their natural habitats are typically 3000 - 8000 ft above sea level in mountainous regions of central and southern Europe and Mediterranean islands. There are around 50 species and over 3000 named cultivars with a wide range of rosette sizes, forms and colours.

I am from Europe, and they grow all over the mountains, in very rocky substrates. One of the first succulents I remember seeing in wild as small child :)