They sure took their time getting this far along. The bluish green succulent foliage of showy stonecrop, Hylotelephium spectabile, (formerly Sedum spectabile) first appeared at ground level in early spring, and has been growing into rounded mounds so slowly that it now stands less than three feet high and wide. Smaller types are half as big. Blooms are only now beginning to turn color.
Broad and flat-topped floral trusses of minute flowers are almost always some sort of pink. Sometimes, they are almost terracotta red. Sometimes, they are somewhat peachy. They might even be blushed with a bit of lavender. ‘Stardust’ blooms white. The biggest blooms can be as wide as five inches. If not pruned away as they fade, the blooms (according to some) dry nicely by winter.
New growth starts to appear from the ground almost as soon as old stems die in late winter. Established clumps can be divided in spring every few years. Even small plants can spare a few small pups that will grow into new plants. Stems might get taller in partial shade, but might also need to be staked as they bloom. Bees really flock to the flowers because not much else blooms so late.
Have you ever heard of the Chelsea Chop Tony?
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What!? Does that apply to stonecrop?! I do not know what it is, but I have heard the ‘chopping’ of flowering peach trees just after bloom compared to it. Once a flowering peach tree develops a healthy trunk and branch structure, the blooming shoots get chopped after bloom, and perhaps again half way through summer, in order to get fluffy growth that bloom VERY fluffy the following season, only to get chopped again to repeat the process. Bloom is exquisite, but I would prefer to get someone else to do it. It sounds too harsh for me, . . . and I still believe in pollarding and coppicing!
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So the Chelsea Chop is named after the Chelsea flower show. At the end of May you chop a good six imches off of the top of the plant. This can be applied on most tall perennials including Sronecrop. It produces more blooms in the late summer and Autumn.
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beautiful colour.
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Thank you. I was surprised because it did not look like that when it bloomed the previous season. (It is an old picture now.)
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Mine have just started to take off!. I didn’t know the name “showy stonecrop” and I thought it was a Sedum. Thanks for enlightening me.
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You are welcome. (I just know it as ‘sedum’ at well.)
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Most of ours must be the “Stardust” variety, though I do have a few plants that have a pink hue to them. They do very well in my front flower beds. I too only knew these as Sedum, and am glad to know the “Showy Stonecrop” name.
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‘Showy Stonecrop’ sounds fancy . . . and ‘showier’. Sedum does not sound like much.
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The only stonecrop I’ve known is one of our natives: it’s yellow, and grows at ground level. I had no idea that this sort of thing existed. It’s lovely!
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Not only is it uncommon, but it does not look like a species of sedum. Most of our sedums are grown for their distinctive foliage.
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Mine get tall and floppy. I’ve been advised to cut them back in July but they never really recover with full size blooms. I think I have to live with floppy.
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Someone else asked about ‘chopping’ them. I do nothing to mine. It just blooms on its own. I do not know much about it.
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