Wildlife on Ice

(Apparently I posted this incorrectly first time around, sorry. Well, I'm new to this blogging lark - I'm normally in my garden, not sat digesting the latest technology!)

I did say that I love garden plants, so that’s exactly where I’m going to start, with a plant that my mum rang me about at the weekend because hers was covered with Honeybees.

Here it is (right), a clump of fleshy blue-green leaves to about 50cm tall topped with flat dense heads of pink flowers right now in late autumn. It's the very popular Sedum spectabile, or Iceplant. It's a bit plasticky for some tastes, but it is worth it because Honeybees go bananas for it, and they are brilliant for autumn butterflies, especially Small Tortoiseshells (if you’re lucky enough to still have them – more about their startling decline in a future blog). Iceplant has a few cultivars to try, such as the rich-pink ‘Brilliant’ and the white ‘Iceberg’.

Then there’s a similar Sedum native to woods throughout much of Britain, called Orpine, Sedum telephium. There are plenty of cultivars of Orpine on sale, often with purplish leaves, including the widely-available Sedum ‘Matrona’ (left), These too are top notch for Honeybees at this time of year.

And then there’s the hybrid of Iceplant and Orpine called Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ (below), (my German is rudimentary but I think it does translate as Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’). It is in gardening centres absolutely everywhere by either name, and has a reputation for being awful for butterflies. And this is where I want your help! I have found that it is still brilliant for Honeybees, which swarm over it, but I have indeed found very few butterflies using it, although I did see a couple of Red Admirals on it last week in the new Chris Beardshaw garden at RSPB Saltholme in Middlesborough.

Whichever Sedum you grow, the secret does seem to be to grow them en masse in a sheltered sunny spot. For smaller gardens, try ‘Chelsea chopping’ them, cutting them back by about a half in late May. They then flower a little later, but create a shorter more compact plant for smaller gardens.

So, over to you – what do you think of Sedums? Got a favourite? Got a story to tell about them? I’d love to hear.