cold hardy succulents ready to take off for spring

One of the small plants I like growing are cold hardy succulents like sempervivums and sedums because they look kind of unique and are completely hardy in zone 6. Some of the bigger sempervivum varieties are prone to getting eaten by deer, but it depends on their color and where they are planted. Planting them closer to objects like a house, bricks, or deer repellant plants can keep them away.

Sempervivums also known as hens and chicks usually start growing in the winter as long as the soil is not frozen and continue growing until the summer when the soil dries up, generally producing offsets by around May and they go dormant in the summer when the soil is too dry for them to grow. They will just sit there until around October when the soil becomes moist again, and they get a bit bigger since these are cold weather plants.

Here are some of them from my huge collection

Some of the plants that appear to keep growing through the winter

With a warmer than average winter and hardly any snow, I have noticed that many of the plants seem to keep growing.

The little balls of moss are very hard to miss as they grow all over the lawn or any place there is decaying material.

Winter update on the bamboos

It is around 3 weeks into winter and the lowest temperature so far in my garden is 5.8F, nothing close to being a threat to most of the bamboos that are rated among the hardiest. We are in zone 6a  so temperatures can get a little bit below 0F, but so far we have hardly had any snow and there is not that much arctic air built up in the northern hemisphere for this time of the year so I really doubt my bamboos would have any problems even if they were unprotected. Most of my bamboos will start leaf burning anywhere from +5F to -8F, and they are nowhere near mature so their hardiness should continue to increase for the next few years.

Here's Atrovaginata. I decided to tighten the wrap because it was loose and could be blown off.