Creating a Wall of Sedum

As a young child, you probably are not giving too much thought to becoming a gardener someday, but once in a while something special sticks in your mind. This was the case for me whenever our family would visit my aunt in Wisconsin who was an avid gardener. The steps to her front door were framed by a wall of green, and I kept that picture in the back of my mind until I could create my own "green wall" some 35 years later.

After consulting a few experts, I decided that yellow stonecrop sedum was the best choice as it was the least fragile. The sedum was planted at 18-inch intervals along the edge of the upper and lower wall, and was left to do its own thing. Within three years, it had dutifully seeded itself throughout the entire wall, creating the sea of green I remembered. The only maintenance required in early spring is to cut each plant back to the wall to remove the dead growth.

The first picture is early spring, and the second one is late June. For added effect, the lower level is planted with a row of Francee hostas in front, and a row of Sombrero daylilies behind those. This is one of my favorite spots to sit in the summer!!!