Duped by duff gen

There is a Sedum that you can find in almost every garden centre and garden called Sedum 'Herbstfreude'. Sometimes you see it under the same name but translated into English, Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.

It's that fleshy Iceplant that grows to about a foot and a half tall, with clusters of deep pink flowers on top from August through into October.

Soon after I started out in gardening for wildlife, I read a book that said that Sedum 'Herbstfreude' was a hybrid, and therefore it had no nectar, and therefore it was rubbish for wildlife. Like an innocent abroad, I believed every word.

So then when I saw it at Wakehurst Place some years ago smothered in Honeybees, I wondered what was going on.

Eventually I found out that just because a plant is a hybrid, it doesn't mean that it loses its ability to produce nectar - not at all. Yes, I'd been duped by duff gen.

But the thing about Herbstfreude is that I just don't think the flower shape of the hybrid is suitable for butterflies to poke their tongues into, whereas one of its parent plants, Sedum spectabile, which has more open flowers, is an easy drinking hole.

So here is the soft pink Sedum spectabile, which I photographed just a couple of weeks ago, with the inevitable Red Admiral on it:

But note to the right of the picture Sedum 'Herbstfreude', its flowers all tightly scrunched, which for a butterfly must be like threading a wobbly straw into a tight-necked bottle.

Now that's just a theory, I don't present it as fact. But maybe you can tell me whether you think it's duff gen or not.

Nevertheless, for now, I'd strongly recommend that if you want butterflies on your Sedums, go for S. spectabile. But if you've got 'Herbstfreude', don't worry, at least the bees will be happy.