Sempervivum

Common name: houseleek, hen and chicks

Last week, I noticed one of my succulents was displaying a strange growth pattern that I had never seen before. At first, I wondered if it was due to the extreme weather we've been experiencing in Australia... (ie: heatwave conditions that suddenly changed to heavy rain that caused widespread flooding)...

The succulent has been growing in my garden for a few years however this was the first time I'd seen anything like this, where the plant had started to produce a rather thick column rising from the centre of it's rosette.

As you can imagine, the following day I went out to take some photos and had a really good look at what was happening... this was when I first noticed the flowers forming at the top.

'Oh, of course, she's about to flower' I thought (and felt a bit silly for not realising that in the first place)

This has come at an opportune time for me as I'm in the process of identifying my succulent plants and I was actually having trouble with this one. There are a few different varieties of Sempervivum that have a similar shape and colour pattern so I will be very interested to see the flowers when they do appear and hope that it will help me narrow down the correct species.

Anyhoo, I am very grateful to once again, witness such an amazing feat of nature and I will be keeping a VERY close eye on the flowers to make sure I don't miss the opening... of course, the photographer part of me says, you can rest assured as I will (most certainly) post more photos of the flower display when it does finally appear.

Until next time... xxx