Time to cut the Sedum

Many things were worked upon in the garden today. After an early supper, I decided to spend my last few hours of daylight cutting some of the Sedum.

Now you might have grown Sedum for many years and never cut them back. There was a time I did not cut my Sedum either and some years I still just never get to them. I began to cut them when I only grew 'Autumn Joy' (or 'Herbstfreude' or 'Indian Chief'?) .

You see, that variety of Sedum was a flopper, it often opened in the middle of the clump and just looked awful as it sprawled there in the garden. I was told that if I pinched it back it would bloom lower and not flop open.

The next time I cut a Sedum back was with the variety Sedum aizoon 'Lemon Snowflakes'. That's an earlier blooming Sedum and I was trying to get it to bloom later in the season. It worked and it did bloom later.

What ever the reason, here's what I do with many of my Sedum. First I cut them back with a regular pair of household scissors. I find these kind of scissors easier than my trusty Felco clippers for this job.

At the last minute I decided not to bother wearing the gloves as there was little chance to cut myself with these old scissors.

Since my gardens are quite large, I just can't stand the thought of throwing away all this luscious plant material. In fact, the way I originally got this Sedum was by taking home old shriveled cuttings from a nearby perennial farm (yes, I had permission).

Here you can see that I strip off the lower leaves. You can cut them or use your thumb nail, I use my hands.

Gathering up 5 or 7 stems (odd numbers suit me), I take my cuttings to the pots I've filled with a nice loose seed starting mix.

You can also use plain sterile play box sand instead of the potting mix. Or, you can put your stems in a glass jar filled with water and wait until you see the roots. In my case, this method has worked fine in the past and so it's what I stick with.

The Sedum stems are rigid enough that I can poke them right into the soil (which was not tamped down firmly).

In the top right corner you can see a yellow variegated Sedum that I picked up years ago at a farm stand. It's ready for cutting too so snip, snip, off we go.

There's a curly gray Sedum in this photo, another that I don't have a name at hand but it too takes well from cuttings. I don't always cut it back though, it already is a sprawler which is part of it's charm.

How do you like my new Sedum in the round bowl planter? I found that pot on this property when we moved in and it's lasted outside through our winters for twelve years now. Wish I could find more of these beauties.


This entire row of Sedum telephaeum 'Ruprectii' was made by cuttings. A friend gave me a piece of this plant 11 years ago. I didn't even bother to pot up the cuttings, I just stuck them along the edge and soon had an amazing border.

They're not ready yet to be cut this year. When the time comes I need to devote a whole day to the task, it takes a good few hours to cut this row back and then I have to decide what to do with all those cuttings.

This is the hard part of cutting your Sedum. What was just a lush, beautiful clump looks like toast for a couple of weeks. This is not something you want to do the day before the garden club comes to tour your garden.

Another tip is not to take your cuttings in the morning when you are expecting a hot sunny day or a series of hot dry days. We had a nice rain fall this afternoon and our temperatures dropped quickly. Our forecast for the next number of days is for cooler than average weather with clouds and possible scattered showers. Perfect weather to keep these newly cut plants from going into shock.

Well, the light is getting low but before I came in to wrap things up for the evening I had to tuck in my new little babies. They will spend the next 3 days in a kiddie pool with lots of nice water to encourage them to push roots.

Once I think they are growing nicely, I can plant them out into the garden. I'm dreaming of a really great knot garden design to do with these beauties.

This post will have to cover me for all of Monday as I'm due up at the school at 6:30 a.m. to chaperone a trip. Tuesday is our school board elections so I'm not guaranteeing any earth shattering posts in the next few days.

Bye!
Melanie