Bright yellow, star-shaped flowers cover this low stonecrop in early summer, all but hiding its leaves. Sedum 'Little Miss Sunshine' grows 6 to 8 inches tall and 15 to 18 inches wide in full sun, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 8, and fills out within a season or two.
Outside of bloom, the deep green leaves have a high gloss that keeps the plant looking fresh through summer. It grows into a neat, compact mound and holds that shape through the season.
The name Sedum is usually traced to the Latin sedere, to sit, for the way these plants sit on rocks and walls with almost no soil beneath them. Low stonecrop grows as a mound or a spreading mat of fleshy leaves that store water, so it handles hot sun, thin soil and long dry spells. Many are grown as much for leaf color as for flowers, and the foliage carries color from spring until frost. In cold winters the leaves die back, and most of these plants rest as a tight knot of buds at the crown until spring. Bees and butterflies come to the flower clusters. Drainage matters more than anything else: wet winter ground is the main cause of loss, while sandy, gravelly or rocky soil is no problem at all.
Its small size fits a trough, a rock garden, a container or the cracks of a dry wall.
