Sedum confusum

The name suggests taxonomic uncertainty, but there's nothing confused about Sedum confusum's charms in the garden. This Mexican stonecrop grows upright with a loose, open habit, producing bright green, glossy, spoon-shaped leaves that give it a particularly fresh and lively appearance — more reminiscent of a tidy groundcover shrub than the mat-forming sedums of European origin. Yellow flowers appear in late winter to early spring, earlier than most relatives, providing a genuinely useful bloom time when the rest of the garden is still waking up.

Zone 8 to 10 in hardiness, which makes it tender in most inland PNW locations but viable in the mildest maritime areas west of the Cascades — protected gardens in the Portland basin, coastal Oregon and Washington, and well-sheltered positions in Seattle-area gardens with favorable microclimates. It excels as a container plant on a protected porch or patio, wintering indoors in colder locations. The early flowers alone are worth the effort. For gardeners pushing the tender plant boundaries and experimenting with mild-climate succulents, S. confusum rewards the effort with a different look and feel from the standard cold-hardy lineup.