Plant Profile: Sedums

Plant Profile: Sedums

Sedums are a wide-ranging genus including succulent annuals, evergreen and deciduous perennials and shrubs. They are mostly cultivated as perennials and found wild in the mountains of the northern hemisphere. Indentified by their fleshy leaves in colours from green to purple and bronze, and delicate star-shaped flowers born in summer and autumn.

The plants have had many medicinal uses such as soothing wounds, treating gout and a cure for scurvy, haemorrhoids and even venereal disease. Fortunately today we have other ways of treating such ailments and the plants have been liberated for their aesthetics in the garden and can provide colour and interest all year round.

Grown in full sun in most soils except very wet, will tolerate dry conditions and stoney ground. Some varieties worth considering are Bertram Anderson, S Telephium sbsp. maximum ’atropurpureum’ and S. Populifolium.