Guest Blog by Rachel Shaw
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| Sedum and Carex |
An easy to grow shade-loving native groundcover
With few exceptions there’s not much green in the
yard right now, covered as it is in a blanket of white. Under the layer of snow
I know that a few green things survive. Most, unfortunately, are aggressive
non-natives like English ivy, and the seemingly indomitable winter cress that has
proven to be frustratingly hardy in my gravel driveway. But one of my favorite plants resting under the
snow is Sedum ternatum, an evergreen groundcover
native to much of the eastern U.S.
When I dug through the snow to take a look at one
of my patches of Sedum, it didn’t
look bad, but many of the leaves seemed so much tinier than I remembered that I wasn’t sure I’d found the right plant. I
found an explanation for this on the Missouri Botanic Garden’s website. In
winter the stems break away and die, separating newly rooted plants from
the mother plant.
Sedum ternatum is a small plant with nicely
rounded fleshy leaves. Even at its peak of spring bloom it is no more than about
six inches high, including the flower stalk. The white star-like flowers bloom
for a few short weeks in April or May in our area.
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| early spring sedum |
This versatile little groundcover likes moist
conditions and part-shade to shade, but is also quite drought tolerant. In my
yard it is one of the few things I have been able to grow under the dry shade
of a large silver maple on a slope, together with the native Pennsylvania
sedge, Carex pensylvanica. I have transplanted bits of it to the edge of my driveway, and from
there to shady moist patches in the front yard. It seems happy wherever it
lands.
It
is easy to propagate (break a stem off and stick it in the ground) and to
transplant. Just keep in mind that it is not the most rapid of spreaders, and
as the plants are small, it is not the best choice for filling in a large space
rapidly. On the other hand, if you decide for whatever reason that you need to
take it out, removal is easy. But my guess is that you’ll want to spread it around
the yard, not get rid of it!
About the author:
Rachel Shaw focuses on vegetable gardening and
growing native plants in her small yard in Rockville, Maryland. She blogs at http://hummingbirdway.blogspot.com/.
This guest blog post is part of a monthly Native Plants series that Rachel will be posting here around the 10th of each month.
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