Semponium Plants - Surreal Succulents RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year

How about a bold and sculptural plant for the patio?

That's what you get with Semponium - The 2022 Chelsea Plant Of The Year!

Many plants from the best breeders around the world have a showdown at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the Plant of The Year competition, but the Semponium created quite a stir!

Semponium Sienna was a runner up in 2021 when the show had to shift to an Autumn slot due to the pandemic, but Semponium Destiny was the outright winner in Spring 2022 when Chelsea returned to it's normal spring slot in May, beating off some stiff competition from 24 other entries vying for a chance at this top award - we like to think of the show as somewhat of the gardenings answer to the Oscars - with the Best Plant award of course going to the wonderful Semponium this year.

‘Destiny’ is a gorgeous sculptural succulent for the patio, never heard of Semponium before, well you won't have! These plants are amazing new hybrids created via traditional techniques of plant breeding by hybridising closely related Aeoniums and Sempervivums - hence if you do your research you'll often see the name as xSemponium - indicating they are a cross between different parent plants.

Semponiums take on the best traits of hardy houseleek Sempervivums and their parent Aeoniums to provide amazing succulent plants with large fleshy rosettes in fantastic colours - we're promised more to come from the breeding program - they were originally raised by Surreal Succlents down in Cornwall - a real British breeding breakthrough, we feel privileged to offer these in other gardeners across UK - they're really scarce at the moment.

Bring the two plants together to create Semponium, offers plants that are not only tougher and hardier than Aeoniums thanks to the Sempervivum part of the parentage, but also a diverse range of leaf colouration. They Semponium also grows quite quickly, making a large central rosette head that produces babies under it as it grows. The leaves look good all year round and really are quite unique looking. As an added bonus Semponium plants are drought tolerant, love a bright sunny baker position if you have one, and will reach maturity at are forty x forty cms in around three years.

‘Destiny’ and 'Sienna' (named for the breeders daughter) looked superb in attractive patio pots and planters or indoors too. A well drained terracotta pot would be ideal - these Super Succulents will even take frost, being bred in Cornwall, testing has only been completed down to -4c so far - they are that new and exclusive – so we will be testing further here during the winter and would suggest keeping in a frost free sheltered spot in your garden, or grow inside for the Winter months - excess winter wet thanks to UK rains are more likely to be the enemy than cold here we feel though.

Until now both Semponium Destiny and Semponium Sienna have only been available from the breeder Surreal Succulents - but we have them now too and hope you'll love them as much as we do.