No, it is not that they are only evergreen in warmer areas since they are fine here, 100 miles north and more than a zone colder.

My guess would be that the issue is salt from snow melt near the road, with poor drainage as a second less likely possibility. You could try taking some of the branches, rinsing them to remove salt, and tucking them into damp sand to see if you can start new plants if the in-ground ones don't pull through.

if these plants don't recover, I would do some research into salt tolerant ground covers, and perhaps plant slightly mounded.

Thanks, can try that, or even plant some cuttings in another spot, though before I had planted them here , I had read they were salt tolerant (also have that low juniper, forget the full name, in that location, but wanted to vary the groundcover and like sedum a lot). Unless maybe they're just a little salt tolerant but not as much as the creeping juniper?

lol I sure hope you’re right!

if there is one family of plants i would NOT spend a lot of time worrying about.. it would be the sedums ...

ken

Ken may have something there :-)) Winter cold is seldom an issue here although excessive winter moisture often is. As long as that location drains well, I would expect these plants to perk up with warmer temps and the start of the growing season. Both are tough enough plants that small bits broken off at virtually any time of year will root all on their own, soil or not! We often have 'crops' of these growing in more than 4" of coarse gravel under the nursery tables with no direct sunlight. Hugely hardy and adaptable plants!

i have a couple of the ground cover ones ..... i walk on them year around... run them over with the snow blower at least once a winter .... and they look worse than these ... and always come back .... lol ...

in fact shredding them into a million pieces and throwing them around with the snow.. usually causes them to spread ...lol ...

ken

Regardless of what happens, Elizabeth, I would love to have you come back to follow up as to whether they recover or not.

Yes will update later this spring. I only learned of sedum recently and don't see them in yards around here, so no idea what's normal.

What Ken and others have said - I’d be very surprised if these didn’t rebound come Spring.

Angelina sedum is surprisingly resilient, as long as you don't drown it. A couple of years ago, rabbits devoured my new sedum. So I carefully collected what "crumbs" of the plant I could and planted them elsewhere. The crumbs grew into nice plants within a season or so. For insurance, you could pinch off a few healthy-looking pieces and plant them elsewhere in your yard. That way, if your plants in the photo don't recover, you'll have back-up.

I have Angelina scattered throughout all of my beds...believe me they will be just fine :)

Just another question about this - how late into the spring do I Just call it a day with them, and put something else in that spot? (nothing going on yet as stil cold up here, but thinking in terms of next month or June ).

Update. After another snow storm they'd gotten even worse. Like nothing left! A few branches survived. Moved them e.sewhere. contacted state univ extension office and they said in salt tolerance studies they had done, these were not found to be tolerant. The only groundcover sedum they found salt tolerant was acre.