Pacific Blue Ice lives up to its name with icy blue-green rosettes that blush rose toward the center, especially in cool spring and fall weather. The leaves curve upward into a distinctive cupped form, making neat, rounded rosettes.
It is elegant but very hardy. The hen produces chicks that cluster around it and can be pulled off and replanted at any time. Try it in wall crevices, between pavers, in rock gardens or in shallow containers.
What it looks like
Rounded, cupped rosettes 2 to 4 inches across of thick, fleshy, pointed leaves that curve upward; the leaves are icy blue-green with a powdery finish, flushing rose pink toward the center, strongest in cool weather. Smaller offset rosettes cluster around the main one. Occasionally a rosette produces a short stalk of star-shaped flowers. The plant is a low cluster 3 to 4 inches tall and 6 to 8 inches wide. A group looks like pale blue cups blushed with pink.
Growing it with lavender
Hens and chicks love the same lean, gravelly, sun-baked ground as lavender, so tuck them along the edge of a lavender bed, between stones or in gravel mulch for a low, sculptural contrast to the upright lavender.
Care
Grow in full sun in poor to average soil with sharp drainage, such as gravel, sandy soil, rock crevices or a shallow container; it needs very little water and rots in wet soil. Hardy in zones 3-8; a rosette that flowers will die afterward, so pull it out and let the surrounding chicks fill the gap, and replant extra chicks anywhere.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Sempervivum
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Flower color: Occasional star-shaped flowers on a short stalk
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Foliage: Icy blue-green flushed rose at the center
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Growth habit: Low rosettes spreading by offsets
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Mature size: 3–4 in tall × 6–8 in wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 3–8
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Light: full sun
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Deer resistance: Resistant
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Pollinator value: Fair
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.
Lavender companion · grow guide
Community Grower Report
