Growing Hens and Chicks: How to Care for Sempervivum Plants

12.06.2023 - 00:59 / gardenerspath.com / Matt Suwak

Hens and chicks is a funky little plant to add to your garden, one that is at its best when you’re too busy and can’t tend to the garden often enough.

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Sometimes referred to as houseleeks, they’re ready to spread leisurely around your garden.

It’s a plant that means a lot to me personally and I’d love to share a little about that, but if you’re here strictly for the hard facts, check out the table of contents below to find exactly what you’re looking for!

As a quick note, this guide will serve as a general growing guide for the most common Sempervivum species. Fortunately all Sempervivumhave almost identical growing requirements!

To begin, you might be wondering – which came first, the hen or the chick?

I was maybe four or five years old when I first discovered Sempervivum.

Hard to recall clearly because I was so young at the time, but I do remember the fieldstone-lined garden-bed-above-a-ditch my aunt and uncle tended. It was populated with a combination of marigolds, dusty miller, scattered weeds, and hens and chicks.

“They’re called hens ‘n’ chicks,” my uncle said. “You got the mother, the hen,” – he pointed at the giant, succulent rosette in the soil – “and you got the chicks” – he tapped one of the smaller rosettes, a miniature of the mother.

Idiot me-as-a-four/five-year-old bumped the giant rosette of the hen and accidentally released a chick, sending it rolling down to the ditch. Regret swallowed me whole by the time the little chick came to a stop at the bottom, but my uncle laughed it off.

He picked it up and