Even ‘brown thumbs’ can plant mini sedum gardens

take less water and fuss to maintain and can be planted in rocky areasWindmill Gardens class focuses on the benefits of sedum plants, which

Roxanne Cooke

Sheryl Breeze donned her pink gardening gloves and dug right in to planting her own miniature sedum garden at Windmill Gardens in Sumner.

Breeze, a Black Diamond resident, attended the sedum class with her two sisters-in-law.

“We love this kind of stuff,” she said.

The three women, plus approximately half a dozen others, took the Windmill’s sedum garden class July 12 to learn how to create their own.

Sedum gardens are almost like rock gardens in that they can be planted in a rocky area of a yard, said Cheri Worsham, Windmill designer and class instructor. Though sedums flower, they must be trimmed quickly or the flower will die.

Students in the class were advised to plant sedums as well as other small plants in their mini-gardens.

“It doesn’t just have to be sedums in your garden,” Worsham said.

Sedums are cactus-like plants that retain water and can handle a drier soil, she said. That makes them an easy, low-maintenance project for any garden, “if you want a little garden that you don’t want to fuss over,” Worsham added.

“People with brown thumbs can do a sedum garden,” she said.

Breeze chose a layered style of planting, using a shallow container as the base with a smaller version of the same container on top. She planned to put it on a patio table in her half-acre backyard, which is full of geraniums and hanging baskets.

“There’s just lots of colors,” she said.

Graham resident Beth Masura also has a half-acre of yard with plenty of hanging baskets of fuchsias and geraniums, as well as trailing lotus vine. She’ll put her new sedum garden on an end table on her patio.

“They come back,” she said of sedums. “It’s nice — a good investment.”

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UPCOMING GARDEN CLASSES, EVENTs AT WINDMILL GARDENS

Interested in sedum gardening? Take a sedum wreath class at 10 a.m. Aug. 23 at Windmill Gardens, 5823 160th Ave. E., Sumner. The class will cover tips, techniques and year-round care for creating a wreath of easy-to-grow sedum plants. Cost is $40 and includes all materials.

Ready for a girls’ night out? Enjoy a festive evening and support the Northwest Trek Foundation at Girls’ Night Out from 6-9 p.m. Friday, July 25, at the Windmill. Cost is $30 per person in advance or $35 at the door.

For more information or to register, call the Windmill at 253-863-5843 or visit www.windmillgarden.com.