Pilioseum forms medium to large rosettes of soft gray-green leaves with a rounded, slightly loose shape. The color can shift from season to season, adding a little variety to the garden through the year.
Like all hens and chicks, the main rosette sends out a ring of chicks that you can lift and replant whenever you like. It is well suited to gravel beds, stone walls, walkway cracks and containers.
What it looks like
Medium to large, rounded, semi-loose rosettes 3 to 4 inches across of thick, fleshy, pointed leaves in soft gray-green; the tone may warm or cool with the season. Smaller offset rosettes cluster around the main one. Occasionally a rosette sends up 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 loose gray-green succulent rosettes nestled in stone.
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: Gray-green
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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.