Albert's Greenhouse

Sometimes, one sets out to do something and unintentionally ends up doing something completely different. This is the story of what has become the sempervivum diversity project.

Many years ago, when I lived in a little house in downtown San Jose, right outside of gangland, my house had no street trees. What it did have was four forlorn squares of dirt in which various bushes had expired due in part to having beer bottles dumped into them at odd hours of the evening. These squares of dirt were in the direct sun, out of reach of the lawn sprinklers, and subject to a certain amount of abuse from passers-by. I realized that for anything the thrive in them, it would either require a miracle, or the next closest thing : succulents.

Of course, I could not be convinced to go out to the nearest freeway offramp and pick up some cuttings of ice plants ( scourge of the California coast ). I had to do something "different". I became fascinated with sempervivums - not only did the name sound encouraging ( means something like ever living ), but the plants were pretty cute, and came in a lot of different colors and patterns. Leaf patterns were and are a big thing with me.

So I sent off to Squaw Mountain Gardens for the cheapest and biggest assortment of sempervivum clippings I could find - something that was basically the castoffs from their propagating projects, intended for a succulent wreath project, but full of little pieces of many different plants. I basically got a bag of unlabeled cuttings, which was just what I was looking for. I raked the soil a little bit and dumped them out there in the fall to fend for themselves.


They've lived happily there beside the lawn, getting plenty of water and fertilizer for a couple of years now, and have filled out the space allotted for their growth. They are pretty, and they're thriving in conditions much wetter and more well fed than they were really designed to see. The interesting thing is that the high species diversity I went to so much trouble to get appears to be on its way out. Giving them competition and a strange environment has caused some of the species to grow very well and outcompete the others. Will I eventually only have a single type of sempervivum in my border? Only time will tell.