New plants part 1: sedum

Besides getting some seeds started inside the last few days, I also did another planting project. A week and a half ago I placed an order for some new plants, and received the package this past weekend. Yes, it's February, and yes, I live in a part of the country that won't be seeing spring for a couple more months, so what was any respectable nursery doing shipping plants in the middle of winter?

Well the plants I ordered were all cold-hardy succulents, and I let the grower know that I was planning on potting these up and putting them under lights indoors. He agreed that there would be no problem with shipping immediately, so that's what he did. I love dealing with small nurseries -- you get the best service, even if the grower is thousands of miles away.

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Upon opening this exciting package I was greeted with the sight of those environmentally-friendly cornstarch packing peanuts, but in a crazy shade of green:

Under the "greenuts" as I'll call them was a non-descript, generic brown paper bag:

In fact, there were lots of them!

Squaw Mountain Gardens (their website appears to be down right now) ships their plants bare-root, and I'm impressed by the packaging. I know that not all plants are as tough as cold-hardy succulents so wouldn't do well shipped this way, but I love it! No plastic anywhere except for the packing tape on the outside of the box!

The order I placed was rather large, so it's going to take two posts to cover the whole thing. Today I'll show you the 5 new sedums I received. I have several different species of sedum in my garden already, but there's always room for more.

The first bag I opened wasn't a sedum, but imagine how much fun it was to grab a bag at random, not knowing what exactly it contained, and "discovering" one new plant after another. It was great!

Here are the sedums I got today:

Sedum album 'Athoum'

Sedum album 'Laconicum'

Sedum album 'Bella d' Inverno'

Sedum album f. France

Sedum dasyphyllum 'Lilac Mound'

Although four of the five are different forms of the same species, there is enough color and textural difference between them to make them worth having. The 'Athoum' and 'Laconicum' might look pretty similar during the summer, but right now there are some color differences.

So now that I have these out of the bags, it's time to pot them up. I'll put them into 4" nursery pots. I'm using a regular potting soil with some extra perlite added, plus a little bit of sand to help with drainage:

There's almost no way to plant sedum incorrectly. Too deep and the buried stems will produce more roots. Too shallow and the stems that hang down and contact the soil will root. So I just planted them.

The 'Lilac Mound' is rather delicate and dropped lots of leaves:

I'm not sure if each of those will root, but I sprinked them around the plant on the bare soil and will see.

They look much better in soil for some reason:

My idea is to let them pack these containers, then sometime in late April I can divide them and put into more containers or into the ground.

Here's a close look at them:

Many sedums redden up or darken during the winter, and that's the case with these. I suspect that when I take another look at them in the middle of summer they'll be a lot more green and lighter too.

That's just one of the things I love about them though. Who wants a plant that looks the same all the time?

Tomorrow I look at the remaining 24 bags... exciting!
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