Way back in December, in my first diary here, I showed a rooftop view of my front yard shrub border, with various varieties of sedum as ground cover. With the disaster that is the back yard garden right now (over-grown to the point of jungle-ness), it seemed like a good time to revisit the front yard and talk a little about these great groups of plants: the sedums and stonecrops.
I guess most people think of the great upright “Autumn Joy” sedum when they think of sedums, and I do have many of them in my garden, thanks to the easy propagation of this fabulous plant. In the photo below, a large “Autumn Joy” (Hylotelephium ‘Herbstfreude’, zones 3-9) is seen in the lower right of the photo, not yet showing its fall colors, thank goodness. (Yes please, a little more summer.)
Another popular upright sedum is Hylotelephium ‘Matrona’
I love the ‘border’ sedums, but today I will show a few of my low growing ground cover sedums and stonecrops. As in many plant groups these days, there is some confusion in classification, as explained by Brent Horvath in his comprehensive book The Plant Lover’s Guide to Sedums.
. . . botanical research has entered a new realm whereby plants are now being classified and reclassified according to DNA-based information. As botanists have been working to sort out and catalog the diversity in sedums, there has been a lot of reorganization and some confusion persists. Briefly, many stonecrops remain in the genus Sedum, although some have been reclassified into other genera, notably Petrosedum and Phedimus. Most if not all of the border types are now placed in a separate genus Hylotelephium. (page 7)
I mention this confusion simply because I know I am unable to identify all of the ground cover plants in my sedum garden, even using all the wonderful photos in Horvath’s book for reference. But don’t be daunted, Horvath goes on to say, “No matter what they are called, they are all related and often marvelous” (7). Onward now to some close-ups of sedums or stonecrops or whatever they might be called as seen in my garden.
This is Sedum spurium ‘Fuldaglut,’ also known as Phedimus spurius ‘Fuldaglut.’ It is an improved ‘Dragon’s Blood,’ which I also have elsewhere in the garden.
This is Sedum rupestre ‘Blue Spruce,’ renamed as Petrosedum rupestre.
And then there is the imposter! The bright yellow ground cover in the top-most photo is not a sedum at all, but I wanted the yellow color contrast so I enlisted the help of Creeping Jenny, Lysimachia nummularia, not to be confused with the dreadful Creeping Charlie, Glechoma hederacea.
The Creeping Jenny is battling it out with the sedums and I think the sedums will eventually overpower the Creeping Jenny.
I tried to establish this Petrosedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ here but it has not performed well for me, either here or elsewhere in the garden. This is a photo of its spindly presence. It is rated zones 4-9, as are most of the sedums in my garden, and has become very popular because of its yellow color, but a large patch that was doing well in my south garden has dwindled down to almost nothing over the past few years. Of course, our polar vortex winters have probably had something to do with this lack of vigor.
Many of the sedums in my shrub border have red or pink flowers and look a lot alike! I have tags for eight different pink-flowering varieties that I have bought over the years, but I think this is probably either Sedum ‘Vera Jameson,’ Sedum ‘robustum’ Ruby Glow, orSedum ‘Firecracker.’ Does anyone recognize her? They all look so much alike!
Here are a few photos of various sedums (and the Creeping Jenny) playing well together:
This might be Hylotelephium cauticola ‘Lidakense’:
This is definitely Phedimus kamtschaticus (Sedum kamtschaticum). It is very common, and forms a dense mat.
This unknown variety looks a lot like Blue Spruce, but it is green and smaller and very vigorous. It hugs the ground and is colonizing a large area of the shrub border on the other side of the border from most of the sedums and stonecrops. I would like to know what it is, but then again, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Unfortunately, these sedums are not native plants, and according to Horvath, North American native Sedums are “still rare in the trade,” and the few I checked into are not hardy in Minnesota. I can assuage my guilt a little by reminding myself that my back yard garden is full of natives, but I would like to find a native sedum that would grow here.
What is going on in your gardens this Labor Day weekend? I hope you are not having to prepare for the hurricane. Be safe everyone.