This week... Sedums

If you want colourful, drought-tolerant plants that are loved by pollinators, try sedums

- GRAHAM RICE

SEDUMS are small, sun-loving, easy to grow, drought-tolerant hardy perennial ground-cover and I rock-garden plants. Upright or rather floppy stems often sprout from a tight crown and carry distinctive succulent foliage. The fleshy leaves vary in shape between slender and almost cylindrical to cupped or flattened in shape, and in colour from bright-green to bluish-green to red-tinted to deep-purple. There are some dramatic variegated varieties.

The plants rarely reach more than 2ft (60cm) in height, with the shortest varieties mainly spring flowering. The taller types flower in summer and autumn, and sometimes collapse, especially after heavy rain. The flowers are reddish, pink or white in colour, with some yellow-flowered varieties.

In many, the flowers progress through an intriguing series of colour changes and some later-flowering varieties turn straw-brown late in the season.

Flowers loved by pollinators

The individual flowers are small and star-shaped, gathered into conical, domed or flat-topped clusters at the tips of the shoots, and can be as broad as 9in (23cm) across. The flowers are popular with butterflies and other pollinators, with the flowerheads sometimes crowded with insects.

Sedums will withstand drought, freezes, poor soil, full sun and high temperatures, and will still reward you with stunning colours and blooms.

Finally, a note about the naming of sedums. In recent years scientists have decided that some sedums are so different from each other that they require different names. So although many rock-garden types are still called Sedum, most hardy perennial flower garden types are now Hylotelephium.

Where to buy

Beth Chatto Gardens bethchatto.co.uk Ⓒ01206 822 007

Pottertons pottertons.co.uk Ⓒ 01472 851714

Sedum Shack sedumshack.co.uk