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Jovibarba heuffelii  - coming soon!

Similar to Sempervivum except:

Slow-growing and make tight clumps.

Very hardy and tolerate of any kind of weather, even in high rainfall areas.

Attractive flowers are yellow and bell-shaped.

Very easy to grow but propagation is slower and more involved.

More expensive to buy - but easy to grow and long-lived so good value.

Jovibarba heuffelii are hard to find (in the UK) and seldom offered for sale.

Plants in this Group:

Considered by many to be the elite of the Sempervivum world, Jovis or heuffs are similar to Sempervivum, but unlike Semps, they don't produce offsets on stems. Jovibarba increase themselves slowly by self-dividing their rosettes.

This makes them very compact but also makes propagation more difficult for the grower - to increase stock we have to physically cut each rosette apart from the mother clump then encourage each new division to root. It can be a delicate, more risky prospect than simply detaching a rooted rosette from a Semp.

In the garden, the plants can be left to do their own thing, growing and increasing slowly year by year, but once the clump is mature you may split the clumps (if you wish), keeping a good portion of root on each divsion.

Jovibarba require the same conditions as Semps - very well-drained soil or compost, gritty with only a little organic matter and low (or no) fertiliser. They can tolerate quite severe drought but (unlike most Semps) can also tolerate high winter rainfall.

Some authorities insist that Jovibarba should correctly be named Sempervivum but we (and most of Europe) still use Jovibarba.