Purple Beauty forms medium-sized, semi-open rosettes with green centers and deep purple tips. The coloring shifts a bit through the seasons, often richest in cooler weather.
It needs especially sharp drainage, so give it gravelly soil, a rock crevice or a gritty container. The hen sends out chicks that can be lifted and replanted at any time to spread the plant around.
What it looks like
Medium-sized, semi-open rosettes 2 to 3 inches across of thick, fleshy, pointed leaves; the centers are green and each leaf is tipped in deep purple, with the purple strongest on the outer leaves. 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 green stars edged in purple.
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: Green centers with deep purple tips
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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.