Yellow stuff in soil of hen and chicks

kjl1975

15 years ago

I have hen and chicks in pot, and in the last week, a strange yellow growth has been spreading in the soil. Do I need to be concern? Is it killing my plants?

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Comments (4)

blutarski
15 years ago
does it look like dog vomit? if so, it may be a slime mold. google it and see if it fits.

i don't think it will harm your plant.
dufflebag2002
15 years ago
If it were mine I would get rid of it. Bad stuff virus, or molds can spread. I don't know how many plants that you are growing but I would medicate it fast, and isolate it or destroy it. Would you like a four page article regarding pest, molds and the like?
Go to a nursery and find out what is the problem, show it to them, we can't see it on this forum. Norma
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Hens and chicks will grow much better without any mulch at all. The mulch holds moisture in the soil and HnC prefer much drier, well drained conditions. In fact if you moved them to a site with lean gravelly or sandy soil and full hot sun they will respond wonderfully by growing into much tighter, upright rosettes with lots of offsets. You can even plant them in practically no soil at all...just in a crack in a rock. I don't have many of the good, old fashioned "house leeks" left in my garden. I loved the texture of HnCs but really disliked the tall, ugly "flowers" they produced and would promptly cut them off. Then I discovered the whole world of named varities like "Lavender and Lace", "Pekinese", "Canada Kate", "Braunii"....I could go on and on! Did you know that there are over 500 varities of hens and chicks of all different colours, textures, sizes...? And so many of them actually have the cutest, most colourful daisylike flowers!
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If you try again, put a few around the yard to see which do better in certain locations. I put mine in well drained, compost-rich soil that gets about 6 hours of afternoon sun/day, and in two years lost most of them.They just kept dying. I took the few that were left, put them in a 4" pot this spring, and I now have many more, and they are overflowing the pot. I kept the pot in a location that gets morning sun, dappled mid-day shade for a few hours, then total shade from about 3PM on, and watered only when I could remember to do so. I'll keep mine in containers from now on, in that back part of the yard. Beatrice
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peren trumps all again .... dump them out of the pot ... throw them in the veg garden ... cover with light mulch.. and forget about them ... store pot appropriately ... repot in spring ... they are not house plants ... zero degrees means nothing to them ... the garage would be fine .. with a zone appropriate plant.. temp is rarely the issue in winter ... its the pot warming and heating during warm spells.. bringing stuff out of dormancy.. or accumulating water like you note ... desiccating winter winds.. freeze drying them.. or the roots.. etc ... the best example of this might be that.. if it was covered by snow all winter .... it would be insulated from all the other bad variable... if you have so much faith in your friends method. .. ask her to take care of your pot for the winter .. in trade for a batch of muffins or some such ... you might find out she may have stretched the truth.. lol ... big city name would help us.. i dont have all zip codes in mind .... with my MI and 40 years of experience.. i would have no expectation of a clay pot not exploding or falling apart.. just dump them out .. and be done with it.. the H&C themselves are nearly impossible to kill .... if you treat them as ma nature would ... rather than dreaming up all these plans with pails.. and leaves.. and muffins.. lol ken
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User
15 years ago
It sounds abnormal & it's spreading -- time for the trash!! This should be common sense (at least to me).

Throw it out, sounds disgusting, not worth trying to save, those plants are readily replaceble.

If one has no idea what it is, one can't possibly consider it not harmful. The poster directly above me who has DECADES of experience is well worth listening to. Best to err on the cautious side.
dufflebag2002
15 years ago
I don't know how big his collection may be. I don't know what conditions he/she grows their plants. I've seen mold spread fast. Both times they were ISI plants. This is common this time of year, damp, cool, no air, sets the conditions up for this problem. These plants are not expensive, and obtainable at Squw Mt. Nursery, and I made my suggestion on that basis. Nothing is written in stone. Thanks Karen, by the way I did look it up trying to figure out what it is. It is not listed in my Western Garden Book. Guess work would not work, you need to know the exact name of that problem, or you can't cure it. Molds can also make people sick, and if the spores spread into the walls, he could have big problems. Norma

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Yellow stuff in soil of hen and chicks

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blutarski

dufflebag2002

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