Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, houseleek is consistently rated fire resistant for home landscaping.
Across six assessments, every institution recommends Sempervivum, also called hens and chicks. The agreement extends across the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The clearest numerical result comes from Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service, which give houseleek an ignitability score of 10 out of 10. Their scale recommends scores of 8, 9, or 10 for defensible-space zones 1 and 2, so houseleek clears the source’s stated threshold.
Oregon State, Washington State, and University of Idaho extension services list houseleek as fire resistant. Oregon State also includes it among groundcovers suited to fire-resistant Willamette Valley landscapes and later placed it in an educational gallery for choosing fire-resistant groundcovers. FireSmart BC calls it an approved fire-resistant plant. New Mexico’s Forestry Division includes it on its FireWise list for flowers and groundcovers, marking it suitable from 4,000 feet through 9,000 feet and above, with low-to-moderate water needs.
Houseleek is a groundcover in the Crassulaceae family. Some findings come from expert-curated or compiled recommendations, while Colorado supplies a scored assessment. Together, they make a clear practical case: houseleek belongs among the fire-resistant plants a homeowner can consider for landscaping.
Form
groundcover
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; New Mexico; OR/WA/ID +2
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.
Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01
OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.
The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in ID, OR, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 4–10.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
4–10 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Sempervivum spp. · exact match.
Source location: Hens and chicks profile, USDA hardiness zones field.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ intermediate zone (10-30 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Hens and Chicks profile (PDF page 15) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant plant profile galleries: Hens and chicks — Sempervivum spp. [osu-2023-groundcovers-gallery] (with its recommendation)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 6, Flowers and Ground Covers, p6-r29 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original sourceCorroborationCompilationlineage: csu-nmsu-firewise
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Sempervivum sp. (Hen and chicks) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=Y, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: L-M; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: .5’; approximate bloom: n/a.
