How to create a houseleek habitat

Here is something you can do as a little project in your garden or on your allotment. It does not take long and you only need a suitable container, substrate and the houseleeks of course. Here is how to do it:


1. Choose your container

Houseleeks (Sempervivum) thrive in sunny, dry places with a minimum of soil. They don`t need deep pots so you can look for shallow containers such as small troughs, bowls or, as I have done, a piece of roof gutter. You have to make sure there is good drainage as houseleeks don`t like sitting in wet soil for too long. If there are no drainage holes in your container you have to drill some yourself.

I have chosen this roof gutter to plant my houseleeks in

2. Get the plants

I had sown some houseleek seeds last year and the resulting seedlings developed into pretty plants, sitting around in the greenhouse, waiting for me to plant them somewhere. If you don`t want to sow seeds, garden centres and plant nurseries often offer a nice selection of different houseleeks: green or red, hairy or glossy, small or large. Just choose what takes your fancy.

Houseleeks waiting to be planted

3. Mix the substrate

As houseleeks need very well-drained soil I have mixed together 1 part coarse sand, 1 part gravel and 1 part compost. You can use more sand or gravel but I would not increase the proportion of compost.

Sand, gravel and compost mixed together

4. Arrange your housleeks

Remove the pots and put the houseleeks in the container, arrange them any way you like. I used equal spacings so the plants have space on each side to grow.

5. Fill in the substrate

Once you are happy with the arrangement fill in the sand-gravel-compost mix. Fill to about 1 cm below the rim of the container, make sure you fill all the space around the roots of the plants, press the substrate down lightly.

6. Cover with gravel

To keep the houseleek leaves dry and clean cover the substrate with about 1 cm of gravel. It also looks much nicer. You only have to water if the plants and the substrate are very dry. Otherwise just wait for the rain.

All done! Now you only have to find some space to put your container. I thought a suitable space for my houseleeks would be on the roof of my cane storage area on the allotment. It is low enough for me to appreciate the houseleeks but high enough for the plants to catch all the sunshine they can get.
Houseleeks are very hardy so it does not really matter where you put them. The only condition is as sunny a place as possible!
You normally don`t have to water your houseleeks. Only in the case of a prolonged drought or if they look very dry and stressed give them some water.

Happy planting!