sedum Autumn Joy

Greetings all:

Someone on this list last summer told me how easy this plant is to
propagate, and that I would be complaining about it taking over my garden
in a year or two.  Whoever said that may be correct.

Here's what has happened since:

I purchased a single gallon pot from the nursery.  I popped it in one of
the propagation beds and forgot about it.  It grew happily and bloomed
furiously in late summer.

This March, I dug it up and divided it into about 40 pieces.  There were
rosettes everywhere, and I simply cut and cut and cut.  Every rosette had
some small amount of stem (rhizome?) --- every one seems to have rooted and
taken off.  

Two weeks ago, I took at least one cutting (terminal mostly; subterminal
when the cutting was long enough, just to see what would happen).  I got
about 60 cuttings.  Dipped in a hormone solution (probably not necessary
for Sedum, but I had it already on the bench), let them air-dry, and stuck
them into 1:1 perlite:ProMix BX.  These are looking pretty good after two
weeks.  Figure another 40 rooted cuttings minimum (60% or so), or 80 total
plants from a one-year increase.  

Plus the 40 original rosettes are all breaking buds like crazy.  I will
probably be able to make terminal cuttings on these again before moving
them to the garden in late May.  At least 20 more for a total of 100.  

If each of those 100 plants gives me 100 plants next spring, I could have
10,000 plants in two years.  And no, I don't need 10,000 Autumn Joy plants.
 But I can see why you said I would be overwhelmed by this one quite
quickly.  

I tried simple leaf cuttings last summer, and although I got some rooting,
no shoots ever emerged.  I am not a patient gardener --- after three months
and no shoots emerging, I pulled them up to check, and tossed them in the
compost heap.  

I suspect that a leaf-bud cutting, or a leaf with a stem disk would root
and send up shoots readily.  That's this summer's project to try, even
though I need no more Autumn Joy.  

Rick Grazzini
5b/6a central PA
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