Nice! Mine usually flop...

I bet growing in Utah is why it doesn't flop!

Best looking Autumn Joy I've ever seen. Mine looks nothing like that. Could you share some tips?

This sedum is also beautiful after the flower have dried to a lovely copper color. I gathered them and put in vases for late fall and even Christmas. They last a long time before falling apart.

And - the flowers are tough enough that they dry and stand up to lots of snow, and look great all season for winter interest. A truly 4 season plant!
Jan

Great progression of pics!! I would love to see even one or 2 more pics before and after. I think it's pretty when it's dried up too. I know Autumn Joy is common, but it's reliable (unless the voles get to it) and I like the colors, and the bees are all over it.

In most settings they won't flop if you cut (break) them back when they are between 6-8 inches tall. You'll have more compact plants, though the flower heads are smaller....they are more numerous.
Even if a plant looks compact like the photographs here, chances are excellent that next year it will flop (open up in the middle) . Hence, cut it back Do it at a leave node so there's not an ugly stick standing up.

Thanks for the nice comments. Some years it splays open in the middle more than it did last year but doesn't really flop. I don't know if I have any good tips. They seem to like where they are. They get regular to light watering in sandy soil. This one gets good morning sun and high noon sunshine in the summer. The sedums I have along the driveway seem happiest. Maybe they like the warmth.

Here's a picture of when the flowers are more rust colored, but it looks like I took it at a different time of day, so I wasn't sure if it represented the color very well. You can see it is starting to splay open more in the middle by the end of October. ....This year I'll have to try cutting some for a vase, especially if they're long lasting.

{{gwi:268148}}

The only ones that flop in my gardens are the ones that don't get full sun.

BTW, if you want more or want to make a nice border around a garden, just cut a few inches off the tops in the spring. Then, just poke them in the ground (I do three pieces in each hole). No rooting necessary at all! They will grow and the following spring you will have a gorgeous hedge/border.

Once you have Sedum, you have it forever (and as much as you want).

Around here, the usual progression is from first pink tinge to brown in the span of about ten days.

Sorry to trash 'Autumn Joy' yet again, but it's been a consistent disappointment in recent years and gotten shovel-pruned from all but one location (the plant I removed from a main border location this spring reproached me by surviving and even blooming on the compost heap. True to form, the flowers rapidly went from pinkish to brown).

They are very nice. Around here they seem to go from the light pink to the bronzy darker pink much quicker. I have one that gets morning shade and afternoon sun and its somwhere between your late september and early october pictures. Another that gets only morning sun is still in early september stage. They are pretty common around here, too, and not all of them always look so great but I'm pretty happy with mine.

RyseRyse is right about propagating more from cuttings without rooting hormones. I actually did some in the fall last year (a few from my afternoon sun autumn joy, a few from a co-worker, a few from my partner's mom) and they've all grown back beautifully. They only grew one or two stems but I'm sure in the next year or so they'll grow a little more

cool progression, nice to see them all one after another!

Lots of factors in play. Soil to rich. Flop. To wet. Flop. To much shade. Flop. You can't say a plant is a loser everywhere until you try it everywhere. Sometimes planting the right things around notorious floppers can help them stand up.

Talk about flopping! We've had tons of rain this year. Two clumps of Autumn Joy on my slope are a full 36" tall and 6' across. Reckon they've mutated? No fertilization. Full sun.

crunch, would like suggestions for what planted around them could help with the flopping. For now, golden orb spiders have the open centers filled with their webs.

Your thoughts?
Rosie, in Sugar Hill, GA (north Atlanta)

From this one plant I have made many more. I trim a bit off in the spring and put the tips in moist soil, sometimes with rooting hormone but not always. The trick is keeping the soil moist until it roots. These are all from that original plant. They're at the bottom of my driveway where they get less water and usually are shorter. Because of overhanging trees they get less sun so sparser flowers, but they fill out a difficult area and look good.
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I'm having some luck with other sedums around my yard, but Autumn Joy seems the strongest so far. That's probably why it became common.

sandyslopes, yours look great. Do you know if they're deer candy? The dreaded deer have recently appeared in my neighborhood. Back has 6' fence which may deter them, but I'd love to extend the Autumn Joy to the front.

Thanks for any info re deer.

I have autumn joy and sedum brilliant, the latter all over the yard (and my neighbor's) from rooting pieces when i cut them back over the summer. My autumn joy is looking good this year too. Not flopping as much as usual. The Brilliant is flopping as usual, however. I have pinched it back at least a couple of times

I have Sedum here for 20 years with no deer eating them, this year they ate them to the ground. As fast as they grew back they were eaten again. I finally laid wire over them to get them started again before the roots gave up. Al

Well, calistoga, that is not what I wanted to hear. I had them for years at my last home, deer galore but never saw them damaged. Rats! I'll keep them in the back and hope the deer don't decide to jump the fence.

Rosie

I don't have enough deer experience to speak to that. I have deer come through my yard, usually just one to two at a time. So far they've not damaged any of my garden plants, walking past hostas, and everything else I've read they might eat, to raid the bird seed feeders and that's it. But I think if they're thirsty and hungry enough, they'll eat anything.

Luckily, I live where there's still plentiful native weeds and plants, which our deer seem to prefer. I also keep my bird baths full so they drink from those instead of eating tomatoes and such from my veggie garden.

Sandyslopes I like your swatch of Autumn Joy!

I don't have a ton of deer, but they do browse on some plants mostly in the back garden, and on some of my favorite native perennials. They have never touched the Sedum so it must not be a deer favorite.

However, the voles love the tuberous roots of Sedum! They nearly wiped out my beautiful large Matrona and Purple Emperor in the front garden 2 years ago. It is one of the plants I sprinkle with castor oil solution, which works great as a vole repellent. Now the plants are recovering well.

Early this spring we put an electric wire around this flower bed by the house. Took the wire down in July, but the deer have (so far) have stayed away. Usually they love to snack on my upright sedums.