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Host of houseleeks pot display
- BBC Gardeners' World Magazine
Published: Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 11:02 am
Plant up a maintenance container with a fabulous mix of drought-tolerant houseleeks.
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Planted up with a diverse mix of houseleeks (sempervivums), this container display is wonderfully low-maintenance, with very little required in the way of watering, feeding and deadheading. It's perfect for a front garden or patio display, and will come into its own in dry summers.
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More container gardening advice:
- 10 colourful winter pots
- Caring for sempervivums – golden rules (video)
- How to propagate houseleeks (video)
Find out more about how we planted up this sempervivum container display and how to care for it, below.
The plants we used
Mixed sempervivums
Mixed selection of houseleeks (sempervivums)
We used a six-pack of sempervivums, each differing in rosette size, leaf colour and shape. Any sempervivums will work in this pot display – visit your local nursery or garden centre and pick out a selection that works for you.
Care and maintenance
Once you've planted you pot, place it in a sunny area of the garden. Sempervivums are robust plants and can cope with hot summer sun, but it's important to ensure the container doesn't become waterlogged. The gravel mulch is both decorative and helps to ensure water doesn't sit around the rosettes, which would make them more likely to rot. Water this container no more than once a week.
We mixed in slow-release fertiliser when planting up this container, which should provide the plants with enough nutrients for the growing season. After planting, you won't need to feed the plants in this container at all, until the time comes to repot them.
Sempervivums die after flowering, but produce offsets that can be used to fill the gap they leave behind.
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Planted in spring or autumn, this container will look good for several years. After then, think about dividing the sempervivums to rejuvenate them. You can repot them or plant them in the ground in a dedicated alpine garden. They can also be used in green roof planting schemes.
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