Sedum
A succulent border perennial whose flat pink flower plates open in September, at almost the last possible moment, and are covered in bees and butterflies for weeks afterwards. Sedum is drought-proof, needs no attention, and does its work in the autumn gap — which makes it one of the highest-value plants per square metre in a late-season garden.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- High
- Pollen
- Moderate
- As a honey crop
- Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus
- Which bees, and why
- Worked by honey bees, late bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies and butterflies — small tortoiseshells and red admirals in particular. The flat plate of tiny open florets is a landing platform that suits everything.
Tiny fully open florets with exposed nectar. As accessible as forage gets, which is why the visitor list is so broad.
- Worth knowing
- Good nectar delivered at exactly the point when late bumblebee queens are fattening for hibernation and honey bees are topping up winter stores.
Flowering
- In flower
- August to October (northern hemisphere)
Opens in late August or early September and stays productive for six weeks or more, well into the ivy season.
- When nectar flows
- Generous nectar, fully exposed on hundreds of tiny florets per head, and available on any mild autumn day.
- Year-to-year variation
- Extremely dependable, including in drought. Not a honey crop.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Full sun and free-draining poor soil. Rich ground and shade make it flop open in the middle.
- Size
- 40-60 cm.
- Native range
- China, Korea and Japan.
- Suits
- Containers and window boxes, Small gardens, Large gardens
- The classic single-flowered forms such as 'Autumn Joy' and Hylotelephium spectabile are excellent. Some newer dark-leaved cultivars flower less and are worth checking before buying.
- Leave the dead flower heads standing all winter — they are structurally beautiful in frost and the stems provide shelter.
- If it flops, the cause is almost always soil that is too rich. Cutting it back by a third in early June produces a shorter, sturdier plant.
What it looks like
Fleshy grey-green succulent leaves in upright clumps, topped by broad flat corymbs of tiny star-shaped flowers opening pale pink and deepening to rust as they age.
Sources
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
- Bumblebees: Behaviour, Ecology, and Conservation — Oxford University Press (2010) · Monograph
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- How to actually help beesRanked by how much difference it makes, from the things that genuinely work down to the things that are mostly gestures. The first item on the list is not planting flowers.
- How to make a garden genuinely useful to beesMost bee-friendly advice covers flowers in June, which is the one thing bees are least short of. The gaps are at the ends of the year — and half the problem is not flowers at all.
- The best flowers for beesHerbaceous flowers rather than trees and shrubs, chosen for output and length of season. Most of them are things you can grow in a border or a container.
- Bee plants through the yearThe gaps matter more than the peaks. Almost every garden has plenty in June and nothing in February, and it is the empty months that limit what a garden can support.
- Autumn plants for beesAutumn forage decides how well colonies enter winter. It is also when one plant does more work than everything else combined, and most people regard it as a nuisance.
- Bee plants for a balconyBees will find a balcony several floors up, and containers can be genuinely productive. The constraints are watering, wind and depth, and the plants that handle all three are mostly Mediterranean herbs.
Tools for planning planting
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?