Red stems carry deep green, toothed leaves on this low stonecrop, and starry yellow flowers cover the plant in early summer. Sedum Rock 'N Round® 'Bright Idea' grows 10 to 12 inches tall and 16 to 20 inches wide in full sun, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 9, and spreads to that width in its first couple of seasons.
Early summer bloom puts its flowers well ahead of most stonecrops, which wait for late summer or fall. The red stems show between the leaves all season, and the loose, trailing habit lets the plant spill over the edge of a pot or a wall.
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.
It fits a container, a wall top or the edge of a raised bed in sun.
