Tag Archives: Sedum

Fairy Crown #23 – Sedums, Pass-Along Plants & Fruit for the Birds

Posted on by
Reply

My 23rd fairy crown celebrates one of the great, hardy, late-summer-to-early-autumn perennials – sedum. Or should that be “stonecrop”.  And the Latin name?  Well, it used to be Sedum spectabile but now the big pink sedums have been renamed Hylotelephium spectabile. Let’s just call it by its cultivar name ‘Autumn Joy’.  But wait…. that cultivar was originally the German variety “Herbstfreude”.  Okay, you get the idea; DNA is analyzed; parental lines are revised; common names are confusing; and sometimes, the Germans got there first!  But what else is in today’s crown?  Well, the little coneflowers are browneyed susans,  Rudbeckia triloba, a biennial. The fuzzy yellow spike is Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’.  And the fruits are crabapples from my dearly-departed ‘Red Jade’ crabapple and wild, native Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that likes to attach itself to my fence.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ has a very long season of interest. In August, the green, broccoli-like flowerheads start their colour transformation, turning a light rose. It was at this point that I photographed my granddaughter Emma “watering” them. That’s rough blazing star (Liatris aspera) with the purple spikes nearby.

The photo below is at the height of flowering in the August pollinator garden, but the sedum takes its time in opening the tiny flowers.

When they do open a few weeks later in September, the colour a deeper rose, the echinaceas have usually finished blooming.

In the background in my city garden is Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, which I blogged about in Fairy Crown #21 at the cottage. 

Sedum flowers are irresistible to butterflies like the monarch, especially as they begin their southward migration. 

Bumble bees and honey bees, below, love the nectar-rich flowers too.

Sedum time in Toronto coincides with the September flowering of Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’, below, a well-behaved, compact form of autumn goldenrod discovered by Delaware’s Mt. Cuba Center in 1985 and introduced to commerce a few years later.  I purchased it years ago and have been patiently dividing it ever since.

It is popular with pollinators, especially bumble bees.

When you have friends with beautiful gardens, you’re sometimes gifted with their favourite plants. That’s what “pass-along plant” means, and the one below, browneyed susan (Rudbeckia triloba) was a gift from my pal Aldona Satterthwaite.  It’s a biennial (green growth the first summer, flowers the next), so I’ll have to wait for its babies to pop up in my garden.

My crown also contains a few fruits from my garden, including the ripening fruit of native wild Virginia creeper….

…. and those from my ‘Red Jade’ crabapple, which sadly will need a replacement next spring.  The birds will miss it terribly.

But instead of ending on a sad note, I’ll finish with a bouquet to remember the flowers of Fairy Crown 23.

********

Missed my blogs on my previous 22 fairy crowns? Here they are! #1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem
#6 – Shady Lady
#7 – Columbines & Wild Strawberries on Lake Muskoka
#8 – Lilac, Dogwood & Alliums
#9 – Borrowed Scenery & an Azalea for Mom
#10 – June Blues on Lake Muskoka
#11 – Sage & Catmint for the Bees
#12 – Penstemons & Coreopsis in Muskoka
#13 – Ditch Lilies & Serviceberries
#14 – Golden Yarrow & Orange Milkweed
#15 – Echinacea & Clematis
#16 – A Czech-German-All American Blackeyed Susan
#17- Beebalm & Yellow Daisies at the Lake
#18- Russian Sage & Blazing Stars
#19-My Fruitful Life
#20-Cup Plant, Joe Pye & Ironweed

21-Helianthus & Hummingbirds

#22-Grasses, Asters & Goldenrod

Fairy Crown 18-Russian Sage & Blazing Stars

Posted on by
Reply

My 18th fairy crown for August 7th features a strange, wild creature having a seriously bad hair day.  All right…. it just contains a lot of spike flowers and I ran out of horizontal room on the tiara so it looks like I’ve endured a shock. These are flowers and leaves from my Toronto garden. The lavender-blue spikes are Russian sage (formerly Perovskia atriplicifolia, now called Salvia yangii after DNA analysis proved it was in the sage family).  The fuzzy dark-mauve spikes are Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’, aka blazing star or gayfeather.  The stem with wine-red leaves and flower clusters is Sedum ‘Vera Jameson’. The chartreuse flowers cascading over my forehead are Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) – at least, a few stems that I didn’t tear out to try to prevent it from spreading (which it will do anyway). The dissected leaves come from my Tiger Eye sumac shrub (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) and the vine falling over my right shoulder is Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata).  Those little, pale-pink bottlebrush flowers on my left cheek are ‘Pink Tanna’ burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis) at the end of its season.  Finally, tucked into a corner on my forehead are a few red flowers of Petunia exserta that I forgot I’d thrown into my sundeck containers and they emerged in the midst of self-seeding oakleaf lettuce.

With its airy wands of long-lasting, light-blue flowers, the sub-shrub Russian sage is a big presence in my pollinator garden…..

…..and it offers nectar to bees for many weeks.

But it is sometimes short-lived and does not take kindly in our cold climate to being cut back in autumn. Much better to wait until spring when new growth has started.  

It flowers at the same time as violet-purple dense blazing star (Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’)….

…. which is also a wonderful pollinator lure.

I adore the burnets and was able to source Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Pink Tanna’, which has interesting little “scrim” flowers. But I’m still on the lookout for the big, dark-red species which add such a zingy note to a meadow-style planting.

The Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) is a favourite…..

…… and it retains its chartreuse colour well into summer, before turning a beautiful apricot in fall.  

I forgive it its suckering-wandering ways because the birds absolutely adore it throughout winter.

As for the Boston ivy, well it’s pretty much a given in my garden… on my gate, below, and on my fence, and it would climb the house if I let it, but I don’t.

The little red petunias (P. exserta) were a seed-starting project a few years back and are quite rare and not found in garden centres.  I wrote about them extensively in my 2020 blog My Motley Pots.  This one managed to thrive in a container of self-seeding oakleaf lettuce on my deck.

As I wrote back then, my youngest son’s girlfriend Marta Motti did a painting of this petunia being visited by the hummingbird which she gave to me as a gift. I am delighted to say that she is marrying Jon on September 10th in Tuscany – and we will be there for the ceremony!

Sedum ‘Vera Jameson’ is in my backyard deck pots where it partners with the tough native grass sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula).  It’s very drought-resistant, given that these pots get watered very rarely, except by mother nature.

A few plants that are flowering now or in the next few weeks missed being in a fairy crown, so I’d like to say a few words about them now. The first is hoary or downy skullcap (Scutellaria incana), a native northeastern North America plant that I’m trialling in my front pollinator garden, where I’m hopeful it will be able to fend off the lily-of-the-valley groundcover.

Lastly, I’d like to give a nod to my favourite blazing star or gayfeather, Liatris aspera, aka rough blazing star.  Though endangered, this is our regional native.  Drought tolerant, it reaches 90-120 cm (3-4 feet) in height; it will start to flower in the next few weeks and is a superb, late-summer pollinator plant. 

As for the Canada goldenrod….. well, it’s a useful weed but if you turn your back you’ll have a forest. So don’t turn your back!