Ice plant

As a child I always found Ice Plants fascinating and it wasn’t until around fifteen years ago when I first learnt that some people call Ice Plants – Houseleeks. This beautiful Alpine plant is now widely spread throughout the world and is at home in many cottage gardens where it thrives no matter how bad the soil or how dry the Summer. It flowers every few years and this appears to be the way that the plant thins itself out. They are often used as a ‘poor man’s Aloe Vera’ as the leaves can be broken off and gently rubbed onto burns for a soothing effect as they produce a jelly like substance not unlike the juice of the Aloe Vera plant.

 

Cobweb houseleek