The Chelsea Chop

I had never heard of the Chelsea Chop until I read about it on Linda's blog. It's a pruning method where you chop your taller sedums down in late May, after the Chelsea flower show. It actually works with a lot of taller plants that have a tendency to fall over. Greg's parents gave us an enormous clump of Autumn Joy that had a tendency to flop in the summer. They didn't like the habit so they gave it to us, since I can't say no to free sedum.

Supposedly the plant will sprout new growth from the chop, leaving a bushier, more upright plant. I threw some of the cuttings into soil so I could grow new plants.

My friend T gave me a beautiful pot of mystery sedums for my birthday last year. It included this beautiful blue and white variegated specimen (maybe 'Frosty Morn'?), along with a sprig of what looks like Autumn Joy and a tiny bit of pure white sedum (all unlabeled, sadly). I want that white one to flourish so I chopped the others, hoping to temporarily give it more sun (though how it will photosynthesize is a mystery). I want to try and extricate it at the end of the summer and maybe propagate more of it.

I'm really digging the different colors of sedums commingling here. Flower floosie, shrub whore . . . I might be turning into a sedum strumpet.