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RE: Plant gallery #2: Zesty yellows to soothing blues, plus a few showy performers in my beds! #nofilters
I think I have found the right person to ask (hope you don't mind).
I can see you have one of those big sedums (autumn joy). I got a cutting from my mum last month and planted it. It seems to grow and looking good. And I think it is starting to for buds. Should I cut the tip with the buds off so that it branches more and grows bigger, or I can leave it to bloom (would love to see the flowers) and the plant will be fine?
Hey - happy to help! They're a great plant. Personally, I'd let it flower. It won't flower much because it's still establishing, but any bees will love its late nectar. Then let it die-back over winter, but don't cut off the 'dead stems'. It'll concentrate on establishing more rootstock with protection from any frost provided by the dead stems, and it'll throw up more shoots next year... and then cut it back around late spring! In the UK that's May - around the Chelsea Flower Show - when we all give our sedums a 'chelsea chop'. That just serves to make it flower later, and makes the flowering stems shorter, so the plant as a whole stays more compact and more upright. (Far more info than you wanted, but hope it's a help!) Huge congrats on taking a cutting and making it work! x
Thanks a lot! I grow it in a pot on a balcony since I do not have a garden. We hardly get any frosts in winter, but I will let it be until it starts growing again in spring.
I know mum leaves them like that too, but she gets lots of snow and very cold winters.
Now I can't wait to see the flowers :) Thanks again!
It'll love your balcony. It likes dry feet and lots of sun! And yeah, we need to protect them from wet, cold and snow here in the UK - so if you do find the dead stems not to your liking, I suspect you have a choice to remove them. Just do it delicately as if it's a little plant you don't want to damage it while it's trying to establish. Good luck - and share pics as it gets going! Would love to see them.
I definitely will show it :)
Winters here (Portugal) can be very rainy and that is the only worry with succulents and cacti. Just have to make sure they don't stand in water.
I love Portugal - even your wet winters! Stayed in Oporto for a while during the Festival of San Juan (São João) a few years back on a European journalism scholarship and fell in love with the country... and port! haha.
Guess what... I have never beet to Porto :D
But I do love the drink ;) Winters here are not so bad... not as miserable as in UK I'd say, but I do miss the snow and the freezing cold (since I am Polish).