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marybromley · 4 years

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Brian Minter: Stunning sedums change with the seasons

Are you tired of fighting the weather and bugs, dealing with constant watering and struggling with a plethora of diseases? Would you love to have displays of easy colour in pots and in those difficult corners of your garden? May I suggest some rather quiet, unassuming beauties: sedums.

As a species, they are as old as the hills, but many newly developed varieties are revolutionizing their popularity and their role in today’s gardens.

Coming in many forms, from creeping evergreens to deciduous ground covers, sedums look fantastic mounding over landscape stones or standing upright as focal points in beds or containers. Sedums are the mainstays of rooftop gardens, and are used to create beautiful living picture frames.

When it comes to coping with weather and drought tolerance issues, they rule. Most are very hardy — some even survive prairie winters — and they are among the best pollinator-friendly plants.

Many of us are aware of the low-growing golden oldies, with names like Dragon’s Blood, Cape Blanco, Voodoo, Gold Carpet and Coral Reef. There are dozens of others that not only stay green all year but also flower at various times over the spring and summer.

One of the greatest new introductions, Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ (zone 4) has lovely golden foliage all year and spreads quickly, making it a fabulous ground cover. When the weather gets cold, it takes on a reddish hue and looks even more spectacular. In small space gardens, it may be just a little too aggressive.

Sedum ‘Angelina’s Teacup’ (zone 4) is better behaved, growing much more slowly into a shapely mound. Both have brilliant gold foliage which accents all their garden companions. Another more compact yellow sedum is S. ‘Sunsplash’ (zone 2)

An herbaceous vibrant green mounding variety, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ has a conveniently tidy habit and blooms with attractive yellow flowers from early to mid summer, and it is a pollinator magnet.

Perhaps one of the greatest innovations has come from the breeding work of Chris Hansen and his appropriately named ‘SunSparkler’ series.

SunSparkler ‘Cherry Tart’ (zone 4) has deep cherry red foliage with pink flowers. ‘Dazzleberry’ sports raspberry red flowers with cool smoky blue foliage that ages to a rich purple blue. ‘Firecracker’ has vibrant red-burgundy foliage with contrasting pink flowers. ‘Lime Twister’ has red foliage in early spring that turns creamy yellow in summer and back to red in fall. The lime green leaves of ‘Lime Zinger’ feature a unique red edging. All these very vigorous mounding varieties make great ground covers.

I have chosen to highlight these sedum selections because of their stunning foliage that changes with the temperature and the various seasons. They can all be easily pruned back for planting in containers, and they all look spectacular spilling over the edge of a tall pot.

In 2019 in England at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show, one of the new plant hits was a beautifully variegated green and white sedum called ‘Atlantis’ (zone 4). Its white edged, serrated leaves become tinged with pink as the weather cools in late autumn. Its unique colouring demands attention in any landscape, and it’s not hard to understand why it created such a stir at this top international flower show.

When I mentioned this plant to a couple colleagues who work for a North American perennial supplier, they agreed that it was nice, but they liked ‘Boogie Woogie’ (zone 4) better. It has similar variegated foliage but with a much lower and tighter growing habit. I think both are remarkable.

For years, ‘Autumn Joy’ (zone 3), with its huge deep rose blossoms and light green foliage, has been the standard in upright, summer blooming sedums. Always a great source for long-lasting cut flowers, it grows about 24 inches (60 cm) tall, mounds nicely and as its pink colour fades, the seed heads remain attractive throughout the winter.

There have been dozens of new introductions over the past few years, many featuring new flower colours and striking foliage from almost pure black or grey to several variegations. If you love grey foliage, S. ‘Matrona’ (zone 3), with its contrasting rose-pink flowers, will quickly become a favourite.

There are many other varieties that share similarities with ‘Autumn Joy’, such as S. ‘Autumn Fire’, S. ‘Brilliant’, S. ‘Neon’ and S. ‘Autumn Charm’. Sedum ‘Frosted Fire’, with its beautiful creamy yellow and green variegated foliage, is a sport (genetic mutation) of ‘Autumn Fire’.

Sedum ‘Mr. Goodbud’ from Terra Nova Nurseries in Oregon is a good compact variety with deep purply-pink flowers and strong purple-red stems. ‘Night Embers’ (zone 3) is a narrower grower with blackish-purple leaves and contrasting mauve-pink flowers.

The true test of any new sedum is the ability of its stems to support the flower heads, its disease and weather tolerance and its capacity to produce robust show-off blooms.

These great sedum varieties pass that test with flying colours and are well worth a try out in your garden. In hot weather, the whole family of sedums will be the glue that holds your summer garden together, and they can be enjoyed without a great deal of care or attention.

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