Little Blue Spanish Stonecrop; or,
Tiny Buttons Sedum
"moss & stonecrop green the rock base
of the sheer walls."
-Adrian Done,
b. Shropshire,
1932
b. Shropshire,
1932
This pale blue-green inch-tall Little Blue Spanish Stonecrop (Sedum hispanicum minus) is sometimes called "Purple Form" or "Blue Carpet" because of the blue-green coloration of the succulent leaves. It has a soft feathery feel to it.
I had a one-inch start of it which, while I was putting it in the ground, a single stem fell off & rolled lower in the rocker. A year later there were two six-inch circular patches of it, that tiny bit that had tumbled down having grown nearly as big as the main start.
It loves sunlight but will tolerate some shade. In too much shade it slowly dwindles, & ours had a young Indian Hawthorn growing nearby which grew & grew, eventually overshadowed the Little Blue, so that after about four years the sedum was "melting" away, & needed to be transplanted back into sunlight lest it completely vanish.
It has whitish pink blooms in summer (June). It can take considerable abuse if it has to, so finds its way onto lists of "treadable" groundcovers, but that's pushing it; it looks totally crappy trampled & squished, & the fact that stepping on it doesn't keep it from growing back isn't my idea of a treadableness.
Native of rocky grasslands of southern Europe, it is a hardy rockery plant, though easily hemmed in or displaced by larger sedums. A safe companion sedum which contrasts gorgeously in color is the equally tiny Goldmoss Stonecrop.