A Low-Water-Use Sedum Accent Garden

By "accent" garden, I mean one that is of limited size, is separate from other garden areas, and has plants of similar water needs; in this case, low. The idea of creating such a garden came to me after I removed a very old and ugly shrub from the corner where my front sidewalk meets the driveway. As usual, my first thought was to go to the nursery and buy a new shrub or two as replacements. These new plants would have to be watered in deeply and watered throughout the summer here. I reminded myself that this is just what I'm trying to avoid, as we have one of the highest water rates around.

My thoughts quickly turned to sedums. Sedums come with foliage of various shades of green as well as shades of gold and bronze. Some have bright, almost fluorescent, colored flowers. Many make good groundcovers, an aspect I will find useful in my new little garden.

Once I had that old ugly shrub out, I added some new soil and dug it in well with the old soil. After I smoothed it out I went on a scavenger hunt around my yard for rocks to frame the open edge. I love these scavenger hunts around my yard because I find things I forgot I had, like the big stone under the sword fern in a front garden. I had to dig that one out because the fern had grown over it. Then there were these nice mossy flat stones that led up to the front faucet. Well, these rocks came with the house when we bought it in 1977, so they had plenty of time to grow moss. The moss will be useful to add to the winter interest of my little sedum garden. Notice how I left some space between the stones.


Now to find some sedums for the garden. I have quite a few different sedums in my backyard, so that was a good place to start. For a taller plant for the background, I shovel pruned out a good chunk of Sedum 'Autumn Joy,' now known as Hylotelephium spectabile 'Herbstfreude.'


I had also recently purchased a couple of gallon containers of Sedum 'Thunderhead.' This is one of those sedums with almost fluorescent, bright pink blooms. You can also see that the bees love it, as they do all blooming sedums.


Here is how it looked after I planted a Sedum 'Thunderhead' on each side of the 'Autumn Joy' and added S. 'Coral Reef,' S. 'Lidakense,' and S. confusum along the right front of the garden.


I wanted a very low-growing sedum with light green foliage for the center area, my plan being for it to "spill" out between the rocks. I found the perfect sedum in my backyard and scooped some out for the new garden. Unfortunately, I don't know its name.


Here are some narrow, flat rocks I used to edge along the sidewalk. I thought leaving some space between them would make good niches for some S. hispanicum.


One day late last summer I was yakking with a neighbor a few houses up the street. I was admiring their front yard "sedum plus other plants" garden. The next thing I knew she had her shovel out and plopped a good chunk of S. album onto a plastic plate for me. I found the perfect place to plant it along the driveway side of the garden, as there was a rather bare place there. This sedum has white flowers and will make a nice contrast with the other sedums.


I finished the garden off with an application of shredded western red cedar bark along the front. I hope this will help keep the lawn from encroaching on the garden. It won't be long before my "spiller" sedum fills out this area. Then my plan is to mow it when it wanders too far.


This year I think I will add more S. confusum to provide additional light green foliage. I may also add some S. makinoi 'Ogon' for light yellow-green foliage. However, while 'Ogon' winters over for me, it never looks as good as it does the first year, so I may consider treating it like an annual.