Sedum garden

Our small sedum garden is doing wonderfully well. In the mountains, afternoon thunderstorms have returned, bringing plenty of soaking rains.

Sedums and pitcher plants

Our small sedum planting and pitcher plant bog are doing well. They reflect our urge to plant and transform mulch to green, even if our mountain space is focused on rejuvenation and we look into a forest towards the back.

These plants seem to be thriving with intermittent summer rain (so definitely they're low-maintenance so far).

I'm going to submit a landscape plan for the front getting ready for fall planting (it's required because of the historic district location). Uh-oh.

My gardening companion admired some exuberant perennial plantings this morning in the flower garden at Biltmore Estate (Joe-Pye, Rudbeckia lacianata, a beautiful rose-pink Monarda didyma selection, pink Asclepias, along with a deep pink butterfly bush, and many other things, and said 'could our front yard look like that?' Hmmm, I'm not sure that we're willing to apply the water to make that happen but I can create low-water use perennial beds, for sure.

A sedum garden

Sedums are one of my favorite groups of drought tolerant plants. I like to use them in window boxes and containers, where they thrive with minimal care. They also have a tremendous diversity of habits, color, and form within the large numbers of species available, although with much cultivar diversity.

I was admiring a green roof display at a mountain nursery a couple of weeks ago, and took my gardening companion back to look at some other plants (thinking that he'd enjoy the sedums, too).

They were exceptionally attractive (happily, he doesn't need much encouragement) and we set about adding a small sedum garden in the dry mulched area above the bog-in-progress.

We even went back the next day to get more to add, along with a few with some height.

We're hoping that they'll thrive with minimal care!


Our gardening assistant (perhaps I should say 'supervisor') seems to approve.