Low Maintenance, High Impact: The Effortless Beauty of Sedums
Gorgeous gardens bursting with blooms. Fantastic foliage creating four seasons of interest. Pollinators flitting from flower to flower. If you crave a lush, drought-tolerant garden space—but dread hours of digging, pruning, and pampering to achieve your goal, especially in sweltering summer heat—it’s time to embrace the beneficial beauty of growing sedums in your garden.
Perhaps you’re a tad skeptical. How can a succulent groundcover create a high-impact, low-maintenance, vibrant garden space? But if you’re only familiar with sedums as a sprawling, green garden carpet, you’re in for a treat: thanks to today’s breeders, you’ll find upright forms, compact clumping varieties, as well as low-spreading plants. Plus, with more than 400 species of sedums, you’ll discover an amazing array of varieties with spectacular foliage, vibrant blooms, and a range of hardiness. From annuals to perennials—and even small shrubs, depending on the climate—sedums shine in sunny gardens.
With hundreds of varieties available and their low-maintenance nature, sedums truly are the garden GOAT. In fact, they’re such garden workhorses that the National Garden Bureau declared 2026 the Year of the Sedum.
If you’re new to these super succulents, here are the top five reasons you should consider joining the sedum fan club:
1. Bring on the Heat: Sedums for Hot, Dry Gardens
As climate change continues to create hotter, drier growing conditions, sedums rise to the challenge.
These drought-tolerant succulent plants thrive in tough climates, tolerating hot, sunny spaces like stars. While other plants may struggle in dry soil and scalding sun, sedums store water in their leaves and stems, helping them survive—and thrive—where other plants struggle.
And, as wildfires become more rampant in our changing climate, sedums make an ideal “firewise” addition to gardens. With high moisture content and thick, fleshy leaves that don’t ignite easily, sedums act as a line of home defense due to their low-fuel, fire-retardant nature. (Remove dry, dead foliage or branches to maintain fire-resistance.)
These beauties look their best in full sun, so plant them where they’ll soak up the rays all day. Some varieties tolerate part-sun, but check the plant label.
Most sedums crave sunny, hot, dry conditions for best performance.
Although sedums grow beautifully in drought conditions, new additions to your garden will need a bit of TLC as they settle in.
Even drought-tolerant plants require watering during their first year as they grow and establish roots. Just be gentle—too much water is as bad as too little.
2. Less is More: Low-Maintenance Plants
Some plants are prima donnas, constantly demanding your attention to look their best. Water, prune, spray, fuss…so needy. So exhausting. And then, there are sedums.
These easy-care succulents require minimal maintenance once established in your garden.
- Rocky garden? No problem. In fact, you’ll often find these cuties growing in stony areas in the wild.
- Poor soil? So what? Sedums grow gorgeously in well-drained but low-nutrient soil.
- Tricky space far away from the soaker hose? Fantastic! Sedums prefer dry soil. In fact, too much love with the watering can cause unhappy plants. If your sedum stretches or the plant flops over when it blooms, the culprit may be too much water—or soil that’s too nutrient-rich.
Sedums thrive in the worst conditions—and you’ll appreciate their toughness. Ignore them, and you’ll be rewarded with years of gorgeous color and texture in your garden. Who doesn’t love a plant that thrives on neglect?
If your sedums look bedraggled, try moving them.
Too much moisture or too-rich soil can lead to stretching, a floppy habit, brown spots, or cracks in the foliage. But these babies prove resilient: the plants typically recuperate beautifully when they’re transplanted into a new, drier, less-fertile garden location.
3. A Sedum for Every Space: Versatile Varieties for Every Garden
With hundreds of varieties available, you’ll find the perfect sedum for whichever sunny, dry space you want to fill with texture and color.
Whether you’re looking for a sprawling groundcover to add color to a rock garden, a pretty mounding variety to extend flower-power through late summer’s high heat, or a showstopping “thriller” for a container, you’ll find the perfect plants to meet all your garden needs.
If you’re incorporating sedums into your garden, choose companion plants that prefer similar conditions: dry, well-draining soil and full sun. Sedums look lovely in mixed garden beds and containers, but don’t plant them with perennials or annuals requiring constant watering or fertilizing. Look for other drought-tolerant plants—or even better, create an entire garden design based on a marvelous mix of sedum varieties.
Considering layering sedums in landscapes. Taller, upright varieties create a perfect backdrop in beds, with compact clumping sedums ideal for the middle layer. Add a creeping groundcover along the front edge. These low-growing sedums spread through underground stolons, creating a lush carpet of color. Or use the same succulent ingredients to create a gorgeous, low-maintenance container garden for a sunny patio or balcony.
4. Four-Season Interest: Sedums for Year-Long Color and Texture
Sedums thrive in a range of climates, from chilly northern gardens to sweltering southern landscapes.
Because of their incredible hardiness, sedums keep gardens looking great year-round. While many varieties are hardy in USDA Zones 4-9, some even thrive in USDA Zone 3.
These easy-care beauties brighten gardens throughout the seasons with their fabulous foliage, whether it’s moss green, chartreuse, burgundy, deep purple, or variegated. Many varieties produce clusters of star-shaped, brilliant blooms from later summer through fall—just as many gardens look tired from summer’s high heat. Sedums steal the show, producing fabulous flowers as other perennials and annuals fade.
And while we appreciate their ravishing good looks throughout the seasons, sedums also serve an important role: they provide nectar-rich flowers for pollinators during the late-season slump. By planting sedums, you increase biodiversity in your garden—and champion pollinators. You’ll love the blooms—and so will the buzzy, fluttery garden visitors.
5. Snack-Free Zone: Deer and Rabbit Resistant Sedums
We love wildlife. We do. We’re gardeners, after all.
We entice butterflies with blooms, beam when a hummingbird comes to call, and feel giddy when we add a new bird to our life lists. But darn those deer and rabbits, snacking on our hostas as fast as we replant them. Seriously. How rude.
And while it’s false advertising to say any plant is truly “deer proof”—because if a deer is hungry enough, it will eat almost anything—our furry friends dislike sedums. Whether it’s due to the rubbery texture or bitter taste, wildlife tends to leave sedums alone, opting instead for more tender, tastier plants.
If your garden is overrun by deer or rabbits, consider adding sedums to your planting plans.
Enticed to try these spectacular succulents, but not sure where to begin?
Here are a few outstanding sedum varieties from NGB member Concept Plants to add to your garden:
- Winner, Chelsea Plant of the Year, 2019
- Silver Medal, Plantarium 2019
If you’re looking for a marvelous, no-fuss groundcover, you’ll adore ‘Atlantis’. Unique, small, serrated dark-green leaves display exceptional variegation of very wide, creamy-yellow margins. In the cold temperatures of late fall, the creamy margins become tinged with pink-blush tones. During mid-summer, ‘Atlantis’ produces small clusters of sweet, yellow flowers. Perfect low-maintenance plant grows beautifully in poor, dry soil in full sun. Drought- and heat-tolerant, particularly once established, the plant spreads indefinitely along the ground. Plant in groups or use as ground cover. Looks lovely in front of borders, rock gardens, between stepping-stones, on green roof gardens, and along stone walls. Plant in areas where the foliage will be appreciated. Makes a gorgeous addition to a container garden when paired with other succulents. Grows 4 to 6 inches tall and 10 to 12 inches wide. USDA Zone 4-9.
Have you embraced the Goth Gardening trend? If you love all things dark and mysterious, you’ll adore ‘Plum Dazzled.’ A new SunSparkler® Sedum with stunning dark purple foliage and large, cherry-colored flowers, this compact beauty dazzles in garden beds and containers. The dusky purple, succulent foliage looks lovely all season long, and the plant stays evergreen in mild climates. In late summer, large clusters of cherry-pink, star-shaped flowers bloom over short, upright stems, creating a rich burst of color. Its dense mounding form provides superior rabbit- and deer-resistance. Plum Dazzled is ideal for rock gardens, pathways, and well-drained containers. Plant it with other succulents for a stunning sunny patio or balcony container display. Grows 8 inches tall and 16 inches wide. USDA Zone 4-9.
With fiery cherry-red foliage and vivid clusters of pink summer flowers, Sedum SunSparkler® ‘Wildfire’ blazes in the garden. The intense foliage color keeps the garden glowing throughout the year. Blooming throughout fall, ‘Wildfire’ breathes life into a fading garden, providing food for pollinators. An easy-to-grow, compact perennial, it’s a perfect addition to rock gardens, mass plantings, and perennial borders. While it adds a burst of color to garden beds and landscapes, it’s also a blazing beauty for sunny patio and balcony containers. Grows 8 inches tall and 16 inches wide. USDA Zone 4-9.
A decadent, delicious treat—for your garden! With traditional banana split ice cream colors, this stunning sedum sports dark foliage (like the chocolate sauce) and creamy yellow flowers (like the banana). Dried flower heads remain for nice winter interest—the cherry on top. And just as the ice cream treat tastes delicious, Sedum Banana Split looks delicious in the rock garden, perennial border, in mass plantings, or as a specimen plant on the patio or balcony. The compact habit and strong stems make a great addition to the garden. Grows 20 inches tall and 22 inches wide. USDA Zone 4-9.
A perfect on-trend sedum with its inky-black color, Sedum ‘Black Knight’ creates a gorgeous statement in the garden. This knight in shining armor rescues exhausted late-summer gardens, providing the perfect pop of color as other flowers fade. The eggplant-colored, nearly black fleshy leaves with a metallic sheen contrast dramatically with the reddish-pink blooms. Pink stems form domed clusters of starry magenta and rose-pink flowers, beckoning pollinators to the garden party. The bushy, compact plant sports great disease-resistance, too. Perfect for the rock garden, ‘Black Knight’ also shines in the perennial border or patio container. Grows 20 inches tall and wide. USDA zone: 4a
Are you ready to embrace the beauty and benefits of sedums? Choose your favorites and enjoy a long-lasting, low-maintenance, gorgeous garden space.
Written by NGB Member: Concept Plants
About National Garden Bureau
Founded more than 100 years ago, the National Garden Bureau educates, inspires, and motivates people to grow home gardens. National Garden Bureau members are horticultural experts, and the information shared with you comes directly from these experts to ensure your gardening success.
This post is an educational and inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau and our members. Please credit and link to the National Garden Bureau and the author member when using all or parts of this article.
2 Comments. Leave new
These are stunning! I doubt I’ll be able to find them locally (not a lot of choices where I live) but maybe I’ll be able to mail order? Any suggestions?
We agree they are stunning. We would suggest you check out the Year of the Sedum page https://ngb.org/year-of-the-sedum/ where down at the bottom of the page there are links to NGB online retailers who have Sedum available. On the blog, if you click on the name or photo of the sedum varieties there is a link to a retailer that does carry that Sedum variety.