This striking succulent forms rosettes of silvery-blue leaves, often flushed with beautiful shades of pale purple. Sempervivum are exceptionally easy to grow, thriving in sunny, well-drained positions, even in the driest and most challenging parts of the garden. They also make excellent pot plants, provided they are grown outdoors in a bright, sunny position; despite the common name ‘house leek’, they are not suited to growing indoors.
It can take a year or two for individual rosettes to mature enough to flower, but in the meantime, they produce numerous offsets around the parent plant. Once mature, a rosette sends up a flower stem to around 15cm tall, carrying up to six small, sunflower-like flowers in shades of pink. After flowering, the mature rosette dies but is quickly replaced by the many young offsets it has produced, giving rise to the familiar common name ‘hens and chickens.


