Southside seedling

[gote]

Many years ago I tried to grow 'Southside Seedling' imported from the UK.
Every time every rosette tried to flower so every time it died year #1.
It could as well have been a longifolia.
Has anyone any comments?
Göte

[Lori S.]

Given my limited experience, it may not be worth putting much stock in this comment, but I did have the same experience with 'Southside Seedling', the one time I've grown it.  It was deader than a dodo shortly after blooming.

[mark smyth]

I was told when buying Southside Seedling always buy a plant with a younger non flowering rosette beside the main flowering rosette

[Lori S.]

Interesting... In the bit of reading I've done, 'Southside Seedling' is said to be a hybrid of S. cotyledon (which is apparently not monocarpic) and "an unknown pollen parent" (Saxifrages, Winton Harding).  The implication is made that hybridization, even with a monocarpic parent, tends to be remove the monocarpism (if that's a word?), and this hybrid is further implied not to be monocarpic... I'm confused! 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

I've been growing two plants of 'Southside seedling' for over 10 years.
On one or two occasions they dwindled a bit after a very strong flowering season, but always recovered.
One must have 25 or so rosettes and the second 10 or 12.

[gote]

I have always believed that 'Southside seedling' is a clone so there should be surviving side rosettes that can be removed and rooted by someone. The problem has always been that ALL side rosettes, however small, flowered. After the first experience, I made sure that the next plant had plenty of small offsets It did not help at all. I or my climate must do something to them.
 
It is the same for Cardiocrinums. If I buy a bulb it will flower the following spring meaning that I get a midget-gigant  . If it survives by making offsets, these offsets bulk up for a couple of years or so and flower quite well.
Göte
 

[Lesley Cox]

I can't say whether it always applies but in general, silver (encrusted) and kabschia (porophyllum) saxifrages, while usually perennial PLANTS, have monocarpic ROSETTES. By which I mean that the flowering rosette will die even if the whole plant does not. The advice given to Mark is the right way to go. Don't buy a plant with a single rosette unless it is reasonably small and likely to produce some young side growths before it flowers.

[gote]

Lesley,
You are absolutely right. I know that and I tried as hard as I could to find a plant with suffciently small side rosettes but they all flowered.
My conundrum is Why? and how do i avoid that?
Göte