Sempervivum Collection

This Sempervivum collection brings together several varieties of houseleeks with varied colours and shapes. The plants produce rosettes of varying sizes, displaying a range of green to purple shades that change with the seasons, resembling pretty cabbage-like leaves, sometimes bordered and covered in silver bristles that play with the light. Their summer flowering in star-shaped blooms in different shades of pink or yellow forms in the heart of mature rosettes. These succulent and highly colourful perennials will work wonders as a ground cover for neglected, mineral, and arid areas. They require no maintenance. They only need dry, poor, siliceous or limestone soil, and rainwater, even if it is scarce.

Sempervivum or houseleeks are perennial plants found in all mountainous areas of western Europe, the Balkans, and Asia Minor. They live on rocks or in scree, always in exposed positions and in very shallow, poor soils. There are about forty species and over 1000 cultivars.

Houseleeks cling to the smallest crevices to slowly form small colonies of rosettes of different sizes, juxtaposed, ranging from 3 to 12cm (1 to 5in) high depending on the plants. Over time, they can form a dense carpet spreading over 30 to 60cm (12 to 24in) on the ground, perfectly adapting to the terrain. Each rosette is composed of round or narrow, pointed leaves, tightly packed against each other, without petioles. Their colour is often somewhat dull in winter, but more vibrant in summer and under dry conditions. The flowering appears on rosettes aged 2 or 3 years, which will then disappear, having ensured the plant's perpetuity by producing several small rosettes on the periphery. The flower stalks develop in summer, formed by thick stems that bear 1 to 5 star-shaped flowers, with 8 to 10 petals ranging in colour from yellow-green to light or intense pink.

Sempervivum is a boon for rocky gardens where the soil lacks thickness. They thrive where few species survive, colonising abandoned spaces. You can still enjoy these hardy perennials if your soil is poor, rather dry, stony, rocky, or even slightly chalky. They withstand temperatures below -15°C (5°F), require no maintenance, and promise to animate any pile of stones, a wall, or even a green roof. Houseleeks are easy-to-care-for succulent plants, offering flowers and foliage in various shades that can create stunning compositions. Magnificent in pots, especially in low terrine-type pottery, they are irreplaceable in borders, troughs, or rockeries, alongside London pride (Saxifraga umbrosa), wall bellflowers, or Lewisia cotyledon. These miniature perennials quickly inspire the desire to multiply them. Consider choosing companions with staggered flowering (sedums, thymes) and colourful foliage (bergenia, Euphorbia myrsinites) for a varied and joyful rockery.