Cool, Tough, Beautiful…Sedum
One of the hottest trends in gardening in recent years has been the increased demand for plants that are low maintenance and drought tolerant. There may be no plant that does this as effectively as sedum. Sedum, also known as stonecrop, is a perennial succulent which has thick leaves designed to retain water and often seems to thrive on neglect. It is also easy to propagate so if you like it you’ll have no problem spreading it around your yard. I was first introduced to this plant when it was a promotional “freebie” from an order of plants that I received over 20 years ago and the original planting, along with its descendants, still grows in my yard today.
I think a lot of people would agree with me that sedum are “cool.” There are more than 600 different varieties of sedum including varieties that are great groundcovers as well as several that are upright and grow up to 2 feet tall. Many groundcovers have green leaves and sedum is no exception, but sedum can also come in different colors including blue, red and orange to name a few. They are very versatile and are equally at home indoors as they would be outdoors in a container or as part of a garden landscape.
If you need a tough plant for difficult growing areas in your garden than you should consider giving sedum a try. Several larger companies are using sedum in green roofs at their factories and headquarters. For example, the Ford truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan, has a 10.4 acre green roof planted with sedum; Nintendo of America has a 75,000 square foot planting of sedum on their green roof; and Rolls Royce Motors in England has planted 22,500 square feet of sedum. Sedum seldom needs to be watered and it can stand up to even the hottest summer weather. It can be grown in garden zones 3 through 10 and it can be successfully cultivated virtually anywhere in the United States. While it can be bothered by slugs its preference for dry growing conditions makes this a minor problem from my perspective and I love the fact that it chokes out weeds!
Not only are sedum tough but they are beautiful; their colorful, textured foliage usually is what gets the most attention, but many varieties will also flower as well. The more sun they get the more intense the colors of the leaves and blooms seem to become and these flowers also are a great natural way to attract butterflies and bees to the garden. Sedum usually blooms in the late summer and early fall when your garden is often in need of a little color and if you don’t remove the spent flowers in the fall they can provide an interesting visual contrast in a winter landscape.
Sedum are great planting companions with echinops, Russian Sage and fountain grasses all of which flourish in the same sunny spaces and dry soil conditions that sedum seems to thrive in. Every garden probably has a spot for sedum so visit the flower and plants section of our garden shop and see if you can find some sedum for your yard.
