{"id":113,"date":"2008-09-08T04:40:45","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T12:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=113"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:01","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:01","slug":"sedum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/sedum\/","title":{"rendered":"Sedum"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEDUM
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<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For years I thought that sedum were a bit like bran muffins.\u00a0 You know that you are supposed to like them, but you rarely find a good one.\u00a0 I still haven’t found a good bran muffin, but now I have evolved into an individual who really appreciates a first rate sedum.\u00a0 This may have happened because I simply grew tired of resisting plants that seem to confront me at every turn.\u00a0 I choose to think it is because I have become attuned to the more subtle attributes of the species.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Just as I started to think well of this increasingly ubiquitous genus, I found that plant taxonomists had assigned its most popular member, good old Sedum spectabile ‘Autumn Joy’, and its relatives to a new species with an especially long name–Hylotelephium.\u00a0 Plant taxonomists will say that they delve deeply into genetics to arrive at these new classifications.\u00a0 That may be so, but they inevitably throw everyone from catalog vendors to dirt gardeners into confusion.\u00a0 For now, most people will probably refer to Hylotelephium spectabile as the plant formerly known as Sedum spectabile.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even when I felt ambivalent about sedum, I grew them.\u00a0 Like every other gardener in the world, I have a healthy, steadily increasing stand of ‘Autumn Joy’ in my back garden.\u00a0 Fortunately it thrives on absolute and total neglect, growing to about two feet tall and producing lots of the familiar, flat-topped flowerheads that age from the pale green of early summer to deep rose in the fall.\u00a0 The change in my attitude towards this particular sedum got a big push last year, when we were preparing to host a wedding reception.\u00a0 My good friend Gordon, who is a gifted flower arranger, cut some of the pale green flowerheads to use in one of his bouquets.\u00a0 They were so striking that I was forced to take a second look.\u00a0 Last fall, after the plants had pinked up, I cut some for the house.\u00a0 I also dried the flowerheads for winter arrangements. \u00a0The results were highly satisfactory.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This year I took a bit more notice of my ‘Autumn Joy’, pruning the stalks back on the Fourth of July to keep the plants shorter and bushier and eliminate the need for staking.\u00a0 Of course, back in the neglectful days, I never actually got around to the staking and the stalks flopped over lackadaisically.\u00a0 Now I don’t have to suffer the pangs of outrageous guilt for not staking my sedum and they are no longer doomed to droop.\u00a0 It’s a win\/win situation.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Both the old sedum and the new hylotelephium are part of the larger Crassulaceae family, which is also home to the common household jade plant.\u00a0 Like the jade, sedum have thick stems and flat, fleshy leaves that store water efficiently making them the camels of the backyard menagerie.\u00a0 The plants need little or no supplemental irrigation in dry weather, and, in fact, you can find out whether your sedum or jade plants need water by feeling the leaves.\u00a0 If the leaves are plump and firm, the plant has enough water.\u00a0 If they are thin and relatively flaccid, the plant is thirsty.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The invaluable University of Minnesota plant database lists thirteen pages of sedum and hylotelephium species and varieties.\u00a0 The tall ones like ‘Autumn Joy’ and, ‘Matrona’ are the best known, but there are many shorter sedums on the market, including some that are small enough to be used as ground covers.\u00a0 Now that green roofs are in fashion, these low growers are in their glory.\u00a0 Sedums, along with other succulents grace fashionable green roofs from Chicago to Moscow.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My enthusiasm for the tall varieties has increased with the advent of distinctive cultivars with leaves and stems that are such a dark purple that they appear black. \u00a0Two years ago I bought ‘Black Jack’, an offspring of ‘Matrona’ that boasts black-purple stems and leaves and pink flowerheads.\u00a0 I planted ‘Black Jack’ in my beach garden in central New York State, where it thrived until last spring when my cousin, who helps take care of the place, started a beach fire a bit too close to the garden.\u00a0 The wind shifted unexpectedly and ‘Black Jack’ ended up getting thoroughly singed.\u00a0 I gave it up for dead, but laziness prevailed and I didn’t remove it.\u00a0 This past summer ‘Black Jack’ popped up, thrived and produced a modest crop of pink flowers.\u00a0 Having survived fire and drought, I have no doubt that it would probably also get through a flood of biblical dimensions.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am so taken with the tall sedums that I may even purchase a few more.\u00a0 I am always wary of plants that are supposed to have blooms as big as dinner plates or babies’ heads, but I am tempted by ‘Brilliant’, which has light green foliage, a relatively compact growth habit and bright pink flowers that one catalog describes as “hand size.”\u009d\u00a0 If ‘Brilliant’ succeeds, the sky’s the limit.\u00a0 I may decide to devote a whole section of my garden to these tall, neglect-resistant plants.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Being the fashionable plants that they are, sedums are widely available in nurseries.\u00a0 You can also get a good selection from the marvelous and idiosyncratic Plant Delights Nursery, 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, NC 27603, (919) 772-4794, www.plantdelights.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 The owner, Tony Avent, requests that if you wish to receive a print catalog, send either ten stamps or one box of chocolates. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEDUM \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For years I thought that sedum were a bit like bran muffins.\u00a0 You know that you are supposed to like them, but you rarely find a good one.\u00a0 I still haven’t found a good bran muffin, but now I have evolved into an individual who really appreciates a first rate sedum.\u00a0 This … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1670,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}