Sedeveria letizia is my favourite plant in the garden

Another little Crassulaceae is standing out for me this week.  Sedeveria letizia is a hybrid between sedum cuspidatum x echeveria setosa var. ciliatait, it is a small branching succulent that grows to around 20cm tall, with rosettes of around 5cm. The leaves are green with a red tinge depending on light levels.  In full sun, or when stressed, it is almost totally red, in shade the rosettes are totally green.

I have been trying it in different types of pots and now planted in the succulent rockery, I am interested to see how this one develops over the rest of the summer. Will it grow up or hang down?

The colour is great and it has already started to send out new branches from the base, which is one of the unusual things about this plant.  It doesn't tend to branch from higher up. The older stems can be quite long and skinny, but with new heads forming all the time, it stays nice and bushy.

One of the great things about the plant is that you can simply cut heads off and plant them up to give new plants.  If done at the start of spring, by the end of summer it will have started to branch.  This gives lots of opportunities to sculpt the plant. This is my main plant, sadly having been in the greenhouse it is green, but I love it anyway. Now things are more settled, it has been placed outside in the hope of getting some colour.

It flowers well, with multiple stalks per stem. The flower themselves are almost pure white (I told you I had a thing for white flowers) and like echeveria flowers they last a long time. For me it is usually in flower from April to June.

If you leave it long enough without cutting it up, it will form aerial roots. These can be left to grow, or removed, it doesn't seem to affect the plant either way.  It is possible to leave select roots and these slowly bulk up to give roots that will support the longer stems. 

Sadly it's not perfect, for a start it is not totally hardy.  Apparently it is hardy to -7C (20F) so far it has been fine in my unheated cold frames or greenhouse. It is borderline for my garden, so it will be interesting to see how the planted one copes this winter.  The other thing to be aware of, is it can get leggy if over-fed or grown in lower light levels.  I have fallen foul of this a few times (it is really very easy) and had to cut the plant up and start over again. 

So there you have sedeveria letizia, my favourite plant in the garden this week. Head over to Danger Garden to see Lorees and others selection.