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| From In the Garden |
Sedums!
The choice for September's Plant of the Month is a really easy choice this month. It was between lantana and sedums. Both could easily be the plant of the month but the sedums won out by a hair. Do you see what I mean by sedums and lantana in the picture above? They both look great-really fantastic and do shine in the late summer garden. I like the form of sedums a bit more than the lantana though, so that is why the sedums won out. 
I grow several varieties here at Tiger Gardens. My favorite right now is Autumn Joy. I like it for the uniqueness of its flower shape and form. I also have a flat headed pink variety, 'Matrona', a couple of creepers, and a white looser form of 'Autumn Joy' and all are a sight to behold. Butterflies, bees and other flying insects sure love the sedums when they are in bloom. 
Sedums are not bothered by pests or diseases. They do occasionally flop; which is most annoying. Some sedums are more prone to this than others so if one does not work for you, try another. Sedums are easy to propagate by pinching them and placing the pinched section in soil. They usually will bloom the same year you took the cutting. Pinching also helps to make the sedums a bit bushier and stronger. I took a cutting of a sedum back in July and, as I am wont to do, I laid the cutting down and forgot about it. Do you know it stayed green and even bloomed while it sat outside? I finally tossed it in the compost bin because I was a bit tired of the guilt I felt each time I looked at the poor thing trying to grow with no roots, no soil, and no moisture.You just can't beat the sedums for September's blooms and for its ease of care.
What is your September Plant of the Month?
in the garden....
Good Morning Tina !
ReplyDeleteI love this post (and no .. not just because the plant you chose has a cultivar with my NAME in it ? LOL)
Sedums are such workhorses in the garden. They go with everything don't they ? New varieties are being bred all of the time .. the most unusual one I have is the variegated one .. it may be common but I haven't seen it around very often.
I have to think of the plant of the month for my garden now too (aside from my helenium loves ? haha)
Good choice! I have one Autumn Joy that came with the house and is at least 15 years old. I usually cut it in half around July 4th to keep it from flopping as much. Of all the sedums I grow, my current favorite is Angelina for its winter color. As for my favorite September plant, I am voting for your runner up - Lantana.
ReplyDeleteAutumn Joy, Baby! It's the show stopper in my yard right now too! Especially pretty now as the deep pink is coming through. I carefully weeded around them yesterday as there must have been over a 100 bees! Tina, love your header photo!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any of these types of sedums Tina,but looking at these pictures I can see why you chose them.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, my choice for September is Black Foot Daisies! They are one flower that has loved the extra sun the yard is now getting, and they flourish in this Texas heat. Also, when the sun hits them, they have a heavenly honey fragrance that scents the entire yard. Odd thing to choose for September--but the Black foots are making me really happy right now:) ! Have a great day!
I noticed the Autumn Joy looking particularly well yesterday. I think I will increase it.
ReplyDeleteI really need to pinch my aj it's looking scragly. It's beautiful and large in all the retail places I've been seeing them in. Good choice!
ReplyDeleteYou have such happy plants, Tina. I'm not in the least surprised to find one named Autumn Joy blloming its head off for you.
ReplyDeleteMy choice for September plant of the month? It has to the Phal-type Dendrobium orchid! This is when its most flamboyant. If you just look at it, it'll put out a flower spike filled with buds!
Oops, my bad, we have no phone everywhere thanks to our company who is unavailable. Internet must be slow, but it's quiet!
ReplyDeleteJoy, They are definitely good plants. A bonus your name is in one cultivar.
ReplyDeleteLes, I don't blame you on the lantana-they are mighty great little plants in my book.
Lynn, You just can't beat Autumn Joy for bees for sure. Glad you like the header. Skeeter took the photo and it works so well here.
Linda, I bet those daisies are most pretty. I am not familiar with them but anything that grows well in your heat must be a good plant.
Donna, It is most easy to increase it. They look so good this year.
Dawn, Pinching them makes more plants-too easy.
Guess I got up late today! ;-) ha ha I am late posting.
ReplyDeleteI really like the adaptability of the sedum. Whenever the dogs break off a piece, it roots itself where ever it lands and viola` a new sedum! I have Sedum 'Neon' which is the best hot pink color-- and mine is next to Miss Huff- so they both are shining here! My choice would be my Clematis paniculata--going gangbusters now.
Good morning Tina. Sedums are a good choice because they look good all thru the month of September. I have several varieties too, but good old Autumn Joy is hard to beat.
ReplyDeleteI'd be torn between the sedums, rudbeckia triloba and my aster novi-belgii for plant of the month.
Marnie
I can almost hear Oprah saying, :And, now, welcome to the show, seeeeeDUMs!" LOL. I too love sedums and have quite a few of them, both upright and creeping. In my garden, helenium and Japanese anemone are also very September! :)
ReplyDeleteI had my first Sedums last year and they started out beautiful and full of blooms then died on me. Sigh… I assume the drought had something to do with that death. I did not get any more this year but now that we are out of the drought, I will give them another try maybe next year as we have been spotting them in gardens around town. I am hoping that once established, they will not succumb to drought conditions....
ReplyDeleteYour second choice would have to be my first choice as the Lantana’s are thriving as usual in my Garden…
Sedums are a great choice. I would nominate caryopteris as a possibility for September as well.
ReplyDeleteOh, and my goldenrod (S. canadensis) is a September star, too. :)
ReplyDeleteHey Tina....I love sedums and would love to have a big swath of them in the sunny bed. The bees adore it. I went outside last week and something had bitten off the stems of half the autumn joy....and left them laying there to taunt me! I wondered if there was a cutworm or some other critter that lived in the hollow stems. I did plunk those cut off parts in the ground with hope they'll root. Gail
ReplyDeleteWhen I first learned what sedum was I was also learning about Latin names and thought that it ought to be "seda" in the plural. Apparently, it's a plant that doesn't follow the rules, struggling to survive without water or even soil. What's not to like? Our plant of the month? Definitely hibiscus. Even though I only have one, it is stunning.
ReplyDeleteMy Sedum {Autumn Joy} from brother is blooming. He gave it to me in June. It's not tall & is flopping but it's blooming. I placed it in several places to see where it would be happiest. I couldn't believe how tall his was. But that's him & Ga.
ReplyDeleteSome mums starting to show their beauty. I thought the Lantana would be strutting her stuff but guess she's sleeping.
I hope everyone is having a fantastic day.
Butterflies do love Sedums, especially the Swallowtails and Skippers.
ReplyDeleteHere the Sept. plant of the month are always the wild Bidens.
I am going to have to agree with you on the Sedumns being plant of the month. Great choice! Best plant all around for attracting bees and butterflies in my garden.
ReplyDeleteRosey
Tina, i love your 'plant of the month' posts. Always interesting and informative.
ReplyDeleteSedums are not one of my favorites, maybe because I have not had much luck with them. However, that is probaly due to incorrect planting locations. I have been thinking of giving them a try again and Autumn Joy sounds like just the one to try. Thanks!
Your sedums are very nice, I really like the flowers on these. They are a very utilitarian plant, they grow and even spread in inhospitable conditions, even around walkways. Good pick!
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing at how we gardeners feel guilty about killing the smallest plant (or cutting). I do the same thing, and it's probably a little nutty. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteMy Walker's Low catmints are the showiest thing in my garden this month, but they've been like that since May, so I don't know if I can call them Sept's plant of the month. Or the tender perennials - grown as an annual - Salvia farinacea 'Victoria', are blooming nicely. They were grown from seed and tucked in around the front yard. About half of them succumbed to heat and drought in August, and the ones left are placed haphazardly, but the deeply colored blooms are very nice. I'm also excited to see reblooming stalks on my 'Millie Schlumpf' daylily, the only daylily that's going to rebloom for me this year, I think.
I always like your choices Tina. My 'Matrona' is blooming beautifully right now. I wish I had room to add a few more varieties but short of digging up some sod or pulling something else out, I'm all out of space. They really are beautiful this month tho. I also like turtlehead, monkshood, anemones and agastaches during this month. They are all blooming well (or about to bloom ~ the monkshood.
ReplyDeleteI have two sedums blooming right now. Even with all the pinching back, my 'Green Expectations' is breaking off from the heavy blooms. All of the kids are blooming, too!
ReplyDeleteSedum 'Beka' is blooming. My 'Purple Emperor' started going to mush behind the other two, so I took the tips and planted them around the cottage garden though I lost the mother plant.
Agastache varieties and salvia 'Mystic Spires' and 'Black & Blue' are in bloom. The greggii salvias are also cranking up for the big fall display.
Cameron
Great choice for plant of the month. They really are showstoppers at this time of the year. :) I have several types now since they've become a real favorite of mine in bloom or not.
ReplyDeleteThe one you planted for me last summer is doing great also. It is quite tall and spred some but guess I should also pinch it. It has been blooming for a while now.
ReplyDeleteHi all, There are lots of great choices for plant of the month for September. I am glad you all are sharing them so I can broaden my horizons too.
ReplyDeleteI love the Autumn Joy blooms a lot when they are not open and still green, such a pretty shade of green.
ReplyDeleteHi Tina, fabulous choice for plant of the month. I love seeing everyone else's picks too. Imagine orchids as our plant of the month! The sedums here are doing great and might be my pick, or maybe the blood grass. The anemones are just beginning to open and the muhly is turning pink too. I love fall! :-)
ReplyDeleteFrances
I think I have to agree with sedums too. I have an Autumn Joy in a shady spot and it's blooming and surprisingly not flopping. I'm going to divide it and move it around a bit in the front yard soon.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have Autumn Joy interspersed between large hostas. Beautiful in the Wisconsin autumn.
ReplyDeleteI have plenty of cantaloupe blooms, but the garden has been attacked by lots of bugs.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you, Tina; I love "Autumn Joy." But I have had a strange thing happen this year--one of my plants has dried up, and when I went to pull off the dried leaves, the whole stalk came up in my hand! Any ideas what might be wrong? I'm really sad I have only a few blooms this year.
ReplyDeleteMom, Pinch it back next year stopping about late June to early July.
ReplyDeleteTatyana, You can't beat Autumn Joy for color and interest.
Frances, We might need to expand the plant of the month to plants of the month just for you:) Fall is fabulous. My muhly is doing well too-I'm most surprised. The sheffies-even better but no blooms yet but loaded with buds.
Catherine, You think along the same lines as me-spread that 'Autumn Joy' around. It is super for interest for such a long time.
NC Mountain Woman, Hello and welcome. I'll be heading to NC in a few weeks and will be watching out for bobcats-such an awesome visitor. I have some sedums by hostas and I'd have to agree they are awesome companions.
VueJardin, It is that time of the year when the bugs tend to take over. It is a bummer for sure. But remember, there is always next year.
Rose, Normally when that happens to a plant I look to the roots. I suspect something happened there. Usually (here in my gardens) it is voles who are the culprits. The love sedums and are active right now so it is possible that they ate the roots and tender growth under the plant. You never know it until the whole stalk comes up just like what happened to you. The voles are ACTIVE right now-shockingly. I have lost a few heucheras to them recently. I find the plant dried up and dig around a bit and stomp on the plant and the soil is like not there-dug out from underneath. It is sad and most frustrating. There is a repellent you can buy at Lowes that comes in a yellow bottle. I have found it works well but not economical to do for the whole garden. Sedums may recover if caught in time and there are a few roots left in the ground. Other than voles I'm not sure what would cause a sedum to dry up and come up like this as they are usually not prone to diseases or insects. Voles will eat just about anything. I'd check my other sedums for damage and even plants. It is odd, in my garden I can find one certain plant eaten and destroyed but another plant right next to it or in the same area is untouched. Very odd and difficult. Check out the soil and see if this is the problem. You'll know fairly easily.
Good Morning Tina, I would say Red Rudbeckia 'Magnus' and blackberries. Though the sedums are at their absolutely best now.
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend/ Tyra
What a fantastic name that is, 'Autumn Joy'! It captures my feelings perfectly. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from London.
I'm growing Autumn Joy, too, Tina! I noticed yesterday that it's not even fully blooming yet and the bees are all over it. It's in a container by my front door and has come back 3 years in a row with only an occassional watering.
ReplyDeleteOne flower I've been looking forward to that's making a great Sept. showing is Milkweed. I'm growing the tropical kind though so it probably won't come back.
The bees are voting Sedum along with you and I'm not about to disagree they're the garden plant of the month. On the wild side the Goldenrods are fading but still getting a lot of attention.
ReplyDeleteI used to think of sedums as something one would grow with the other spready smaller types of them, and hen and chicks, and never thought to mix them with other types of perennials, so I chose not to grow them, except for at church in an area with their "own kind". There, the deer thought I planted them for their midnight snacks. Just this spring, I tried a couple Autumn Joys on the ends of my iris and day lilies, because I wanted something that would bloom in the fall. I decided I like them, and got 2 each of 3 different kinds for my new extended curb bed. I am letting them bloom, even though they are a bit floppy from being in small pots. They sure are growing, though. I need to decide if I have a place to put some cuttings. Could I cut the blooms off a stem and stick it in yet this season?
ReplyDeleteSue, if you pinch off sedums now you may still get roots. I think they'll do it even with blooms. I'd pinch out the blooms, leave a leaf or two and put in soil.
ReplyDeleteIf you have the Minima template and would like to try the code, email me offline and I'll send you the header info for the template.
S. Autumn Joy is a tough plant to beat for a forgiving plant. They should like sun I believe but I have one in pretty good shade, and it just looks so happy I never bothered to move it. Now it has several babies inching out toward the sun. I'll have a colony of them soon. Good choice!
ReplyDeleteTina, sedums are a great pick for plant of the month in September! I'm still feeling pretty amazed how well they're doing here with so little sun. I have a few Matronas that started out life as Black Jack but reverted. I actually like them better as Matronas.
ReplyDeleteI started a bunch of cuttings last fall that are mostly blooming now. Planting them so late I wasn't sure if they'd have time to root and come back in the spring, but most of them did. I think the cuttings are Autumn Joy, but am not sure yet.
Mine are doing great in dry shade, thriving with no watering except whatever rain we've gotten, and blooming nicely. They grew pretty respectably for their first season, especially considering the low light. I didn't even water them last fall after I poked them into the soil, and still got a great rate of returns this spring. Hooray for sedums!