Hens and Chicks
Sempervivum tectorum
Through the year 🗓️
☀️ Summer now
Give maximum sun and water deeply but infrequently; heat plus wet soil is its one bad combination.
🍂 Fall
Taper watering hard and let the rosettes tighten up before their cool rest.
❄️ Winter
Keep nearly dry and as cool and bright as you can. It happily shrugs off chilly windowsills.
🌱 Spring
Separate and pot up crowded chicks as the rosettes plump back up and resume growth.
The details
Light & placement
- Light
- Full sun to very bright light; 6+ hrs of direct sun keeps rosettes tight and colorful
- Ideal PPFD
- 400–800 µmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹
- Grow-light distance
- 6–12 in below LED
Water & feed
- Watering method
- Soak-and-dry: drench the soil, let it drain, then let it dry out completely. Water the soil, not the rosettes; trapped water invites rot.
- Fertilizer
- Rarely needed; cactus feed at ¼ strength once or twice in spring–summer is plenty.
Home & habit
- Soil
- Lean, gritty, sharply draining mix (add sand or fine gravel); pH 6.5–7.5
- Humidity
- Low; dislikes humid, stagnant air (30–40%)
- Temperature
- 45–75 °F (extremely cold-hardy outdoors)
- Mature size
- 3–6 in rosettes in a spreading mat
- Repotting
- Rarely; shallow, wide pots suit its mat-forming habit
- Propagation
- Chicks (offsets on runners) snipped free and pressed into dry mix. They root in weeks.
When something looks wrong
- Overwatering signs
- Mushy, translucent lower leaves; rosettes rotting from the center
- Underwatering signs
- Shriveled, closed-up rosettes; dry crispy outer leaves
- Common pests
- Mealybugs, aphids, vine weevils (outdoors)
Common problems 🩺
The usual suspects when Hens and Chicks looks unhappy. Most houseplant trouble is watering or light, not disease — see all plant problems if you are not sure which plant is the culprit.
Mushy center and collapsing rosette
Likely cause
Too much water and too little air — sempervivums hate warm, humid, still indoor conditions.
What to do
Gritty mix, full sun, excellent airflow, and very sparing water. They are happiest outdoors.
Stretching and losing its tight form
Likely cause
Not enough light.
What to do
They need 6+ hours of direct sun. Indoors, a south window is the bare minimum.
The main rosette dying after flowering
Likely cause
Completely normal. A hen flowers once, then dies, leaving its chicks behind.
What to do
Remove the spent rosette and let the offsets fill the gap.
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