by Chris Winslow
With water conservation in mind, I am always on the look-out for
drought tolerant additions to my landscape, and a few years back I
came across the wonderful sedums.
Commonly called ‘stonecrops,’ sedums are a large grouping of low-
growing, flowering groundcovers in the Crassulaceae family. Sedums
store water in their leaves (succulent), making them drought toler-
ant and a fine addition for sun to part-shade locations in xeriscape
gardens.
With over 400 species in this rather large family of plants, sedums
come in a wide array of flower colors, leaf colors, and textures.
Most are under 6 inches in height.
One of my favorites is dragon’s blood. With the proper light expo-
sure, this low groundcover puts on a show of brilliant red foliage
with red flowers in the late spring and summer. And when the cool
weather of fall arrives, the leaves turn orange-red. (In stock at the
nursery: $3)
Sedum anjelica displays golden-yellow leaves with a tinge of green –
almost like lime. This trailing groundcover creates yellow flowers
through the summer.
Sedum tricolor has green and white variegation with red along the
leaf edge. Drought tolerant and spreading in form, it displays tiny
pink flowers through June and July.
Another pretty variegated (green and white leaf) sedum is lineare.
This beauty grows to a height of 4 inches and makes a dense mat
of foliage with bright yellow flowers.
These stonecrops are perfect for our climate. If you are looking for
a flowering groundcover that’s drought tolerant, thrives in poor and
shallow soil, and flowers, then this is a perfect choice.
Sedums are easily grown in pots and baskets, often cascading off
the edge. They make great additions to mixed succulent plantings
which seems to be “the in-thing” in garden publications these days.
Also as more people experiment with living, green roofs, many are
finding sedum to be preferable to grass. Ford’s truck plant in Michi-
gan has 10.4 acres of sedum on its roof, and the Rolls Royce factory
in England also has a vast sedum-covered roof.
P.S. There is a native stand of sedum along the rock outcroppings on
Oak Grove road skirting Elliott Ranch. In the summer, these succ-
ulents turn yellow for a month or two, amazingly with less than a
half an inch of soil. Happy gardening everyone!
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Sedums in stock at the nursery at present: voodoo, summer glory,
blue spruce, lemon ball, sea urchin, stonecrop, pork and beans, and
dragon's blood - all $3 each.
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Coming next week: Mick Vann's recipe for Salsa Asado.
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