Marquest .... Thanks for the suggestion for Black Lace Elderberry, but it is only marginally hardy here in z4. A winter with little/no snow will cause it to die to the ground and it takes a few years for it to rebound. I have 3 of them and will probably move them this year, but not to that spot..... they'd also be a little too similar to the Diablo Ninebark that is 4 feet away. Update on the sedum. A nursery owner I know told me he thinks it didn't flop. He thinks it looks like it died at the ground last year. I then surmised that the remaining 3 tiny plants are just rooted "cuttings" from the dead plant, since they're not where I'd planted the 1 gallon pots. These look to be about the same sizes another sedum (mediovariegata) that flopped last year as a result of stress from moving it.... and now has a tiny baby next to a full-size plant. He also shared that nurseries often use their own potting mix recipe for growing the plants and the recipe usually holds too much moisture. So, that can start the plant off too moist right from the beginning. Perhaps this spot is not well suited to a dark sedum. It's south facing and will likely receive sun from sun-up till about 4pm. If the darker varieties do sun burn, then this spot is likely to cause that.

I don't have anything to really weigh in on the matter or xenox or other dark sedums... I only have autumn joy and matrona. But I had no idea what I had was matrona lol. I received two cuttings from a former co-worker last June, I believe. I stuck them in the ground but haven't really seen them in full fall flower (they had small buds on them when I got the cuttings but they never bloomed). So at any rate, I just wanted to say thanks for naming my sedum :) But, i do love Lynda Windsor... saw it on Blue Stone and I'd love to get a few of those

I fell in love with the color of 'Black Jack', but it got sun scald in our hot VA summer sun. The leaves were plain ugly and I was really disappointed. It also grew much taller than I wanted and posted about that here. People suggested I cut it back early in the spring and it wouldn't get as tall. I cut it back and IT WORKED! One thing though, after I cut them back, each plant grew much wider, with more spread than the area called for. But if you want more plants you can always split them. As someone else said above, cut each stem back about six inches sometime in the spring when they're 12-18 inches high. And don't panic when you see how they look after pruning. Their appearance will improve nicely and will grow quite a bit shorter. I noticed that some of the stems on 'Black Jack' were reverting back to the green variety, but decided that was perfectly fine since the dark leaves sunscald and get pretty ugly looking. There was no mildew, just sunscald. Here's something interesting: Even though the 'Black Jacks' have mostly reverted to the green variety, the stems are red and flowers are darker pink than 'Autumn Joy'. The green leaves are also edged with red, so I very happy with the plant! Though green leaved, the plant definitely looks different than any other standard sedum. I'm quite happy with 'Black Jack' now that I learned how to handle it.

i would love some of these if i could!! that would be so cool!! armenian cucumber tortarelo cucumber golden gopher musk melon? royal golden melon lee okra zolotistala melon casaba melon 1 bosc pear 2 mustard gai choy 1 garden peach tomoto 4 okra mix 1 daikon radish 1 canary bell peppers 2 lemon balm 1 sweet chocolate peppers 1 bok choy 2 green zebra tomato 3 peppers yolo wonder 1 peter peppers this year, i think will be a great year for that square foot gardening!! especially with all that is needing to be put in the ground!!! **big smile** i have lots of 6 blazing star liatres 21 single white angel trumpet-smells awesome 14 lavender datura- don't smell but is pretty!! 4 sesamie seeds so if anyone want's these, let me know. :') these are filled pretty good!@! ~Medo