A person by the name of Jay made a comment on the post 35 Acid Loving Plants (with Photos) about Sedum. I wonder if it’s the same Jay who made the nice video above. TheGardenLady will respond briefly to his comment, which is this:
Most varieties of sedum, a 3 to 5 inch high ground cover that bloom in shades of white, pink, red, purple, yellow, or orange, as well as one everblooming red named “Dragon’s Bloodâ€. These are shade loving plants, low maintenance, drought tolerant, traffic resilient easily grown plants. They will also grow very well in full to partial sun…very versatile plants. They do well by themselves or mixed with other shade lovers such as Hostas, which come in so many leaf colors now and which love acidic soil. So Hosta would be happy with your conifer tree which is also acid loving.. happy gardening.
Sedum are low maintenance, drought tolerant, easily grown plants. And many are hardy in Temperature Zones 4 to 9.
Jay says that sedum are shade loving plants that grow well with hostas. This is not quite accurate. Some will do well in the shade. But the majority of Sedum prefer sun or at least partial sun. So if you do buy Sedum for your garden, please be sure that you read the label or ask the seller which kind you have bought- whether it is for the sun or can take the shade.
Jay also says that Sedum are traffic resilient. Some are, some are not. See here.
When you talk about Sedum, which is a large genus of flowering plants-I read that there are 1,263 scientific plant names of species rank for the genus Sedum- one cannot make some blanket statement. (The genus Sedum includes more than 400 species.)
If growing Sedum interests a gardener, as they have for a friend in Seattle who changed her garden into a Sedum garden, do your homework first. Because one loves a plant does not mean there won’t be problems associated with growing it. One popular Sedum, called Autumn Joy, has lovely pink flowers that the deer love as much as TheGardenLady. The battle is to prevent the deer from eating the emerging flowers. Yet, other Sedum in TheGardenLady‘s garden are not eaten. TheGardenLady does not have a list of the Sedum that deer do not eat. If readers of this column have any Sedum that the deer do eat or do not eat, let the readers know which is the case.
And any plant is easy to grow in the right environment. So if you have the right conditions for the particular sedum plant you are planting, it will be low maintenance. Sedum suffers few pest and disease problems as long as soil and foliage remain dry. But if you should get a lot of rain, you might have problems with your Sedum. In wet environments, Sedum crowns, stems and leaves are susceptible to rot, rust and mold diseases.
More info on growing Sedum is can be found here.