Sedum purdyi

Sedum purdyi is the kind of plant that makes you want to know more about the person it's named for — Carl Purdy, the indefatigable California plant collector and nurseryman who spent the late 19th and early 20th centuries exploring the flora of the coastal mountains and distributing discoveries to gardeners across the country. The plant named for him is a Pacific coast native — found naturally in the rocky mountains of northern California and southern Oregon — with clean, compact rosettes of succulent, rounded leaves and yellow flowers in season. It has the naturally tidy habit of a plant adapted to honest, difficult conditions.

Hardy to around Zone 7 and most at home in the mild maritime climate of the Pacific Northwest coast and west-side valleys, S. purdyi is a local story in plant form — part of the flora of this specific stretch of the Pacific coast, named by and for the people who documented and cared about these plants. In a PNW rock garden or native plant collection, it connects the cultivated space back to the nearby wild landscape in a tangible way. Grow it in rocky, well-drained soil in full sun, and appreciate it for what it is: a piece of this coast, in plant form.