Sedum multiceps advice please

[wildedges]

Does anyone have any experience with Sedum Multiceps and can offer some growing tips please? I bought the plants below back in November as one plant and divided them in the spring. They spent the winter indoors and have been in the greenhouse all summer. Both started to struggle in the sun so I moved one to the shady shelf at the back of the greenhouse and one back indoors to a window sill that gets diffused sunlight. The one on the left stayed in the greenhouse and recovered well but the one on the right has stayed closed up no matter what I do to it. It was in a smaller pot but not root bound and I've since potted it up just in case that was the problem. Growing advice is thin on the ground for this species but one website suggested it's a winter growing plant if subjected to higher temperatures. Perhaps I've fooled the one into growing by moving it into the shade? As always any advice would be appreciated.

[Tina]

I think it is a winter grower and doesn't need high temperatures, pretty sure it's a plant Trevor wray grows and he doesn't do heating

[esp]

I agree, growing advice is a bit scarce for this, and sometimes contradictory (e.g. http://www.llifle.com - protect from frost, https://davesgarden.com - hardiness to zone 8a, -12.2deg C).

It's from Algeria, climate patterns tend to have a dry (or dryer) summer and cool winters, quite possibly with a lot of frost depending upon location / altitude.
I had mine for a couple of years without thinking about it too much and it seemed happy, I noticed it sulked this summer, possibly in the heatwave, but has since recovered. I've given mine a little water all year round, maybe it's best to let it sulk if it's baking hot in the summer again.
If I'm feeling a bit brave, it may go in the cold frame for this winter.
Flowers were in June in 2017 when I took the photos, I've a vague feeling they were a little earlier this year.

[wildedges]

I agree, growing advice is a bit scarce for this, and sometimes contradictory (e.g. http://www.llifle.com - protect from frost, https://davesgarden.com - hardiness to zone 8a, -12.2deg C)

That Llifle link is very helpful thanks. Not one I've seen before.

I wasn't sure what to take from the lack of growing advice. It could be that it's a niche plant that only people with good knowledge bother to grow or it could be that they're so easy to grow that no one thinks to offer any tips beyond the usual sedum 'don't over water it, put it somewhere sunny and it'll be fine' mantra. This one is the only one I've ever managed to find on sale in the UK so I'm not really that surprised.

The Plant Lover's Guide to Sedums features it. Zones 9-11, well drained to average soil in full sun. Mine seems to be doing better in bright light with a bit of shade though.

Ray Stephenson's Sedum book has almost a page dedicated to it without offering much advice on growing it which again I take to mean it's easier to grow than I seem to be making it.

[wildedges]

The plant on the right has perked up a bit in the last couple of weeks. I'm probably going to bring them in over the winter even if they are cold greenhouse hardy though.

[wildedges]

Predictions of winter growth were accurate. Both plants look a lot happier now. The prostrate plant is putting out a lot of air roots so I'm layering it into another pot rather than take cuttings. Excuse the pachyphyllum cutting, it snapped off the main plant and I put it in the pot for safe keeping and it rooted before I noticed.

[juster]

Very interesting to see this and your plants look good.

[wildedges]

and now it's flowering

[juster]

[wildedges]

I've been doing some more research into this plant just to see if I could find out more about the natural habitat and I came upon a useful resource on iNaturalist.org. The website allows anyone to log sightings of plants or animals around the world and then other users can verify the ID is correct or suggest an alternative. Typing in Sedum multiceps only brought up about 30 records but they were mostly in Algeria with a couple in Corsica and Spain. Helpfully there were a handful of records from around 1500m in the Algerian mountains which can be checked against photos posted on Google Earth to show more details of the type of habitat. I was able to chat with one of the people who posted the mountain records to get more details and he was really helpful.
This photo was from around 1500m and shows the plant thriving as a colony on a scree slope. This was the only record I found that wasn't of a small plant. The photo was taken mid-June with the plant in flower but the leaves heading into dormancy.

Contrast to a sea-level plant in January. January is one of the higher rainfall months in this area with about 11 days of rain and 80mm of rain overall for the month. Average temp is about 11c with a low of 5c. Extensive growth like this isn't something I've really seen in cultivated plants. It makes me think I should encourage one of my plants to sprawl and root as it goes to see what happens. This is typical of most records though which show the plants in cracks in a rock face with a bit of shade.

This is the mountain habitat which apparently does get significant amounts of snow throughout the winter. The road is at about 1250m and the plants were seen another 250m up that mountain on the left.

This is the sort of habitat for the mountain plants. Rocky slopes with scattered conifers and sparse vegetation but good scattered shade. This is still in the wetter coastal region and the snow can get a couple of metres deep in winter at higher levels. It must be a short growing season between snow and drought up there. The rainfall rates drop rapidly the further you get from the coast though. Setif (1000m elevation) is only 30 miles from the coast and gets half the rainfall of Algiers.