Plant in morning sun to bright shade in a well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally in the summer but keep as dry as possible in winter months. This plant has wintered outdoors at the Huntington in a shade house with nighttime temperatures around 26F. This is an interesting and beautiful plant that cannot be confused with any other Sedum but is a bit hard to tell from Echeveria elegans when not in bloom.

Sedum suaveolens was discovered in January 1976 by Myron Kimnach of the Huntington Botanic Garden and Hernando Sánchez Mejorada of the University of Mexico along a narrow river canyon in the western Sierra Madre Occidental Mountain at 3,800 feet 2 miles south of Topia in Durango where it grew with orchids, Hylocereus purpusii, Agave angustifolia, Sedum semiteres, and thickets of Yushania (Otatea) aztecorum and Chamaedorea pochutlensis where they described this plant as "echeveria-like plants, their pure white rosettes growing singly or in clusters to two feet wide". They were able to dislodge plants of seven separate clones and in June of the same year and one flowered in the greenhouse, allowing the determination that the plant was in fact an entirely new species of Sedum. A single clone was selected by the Huntington and this plant was distributed in 1978 through the International Succulent Institute (ISI) as ISI 1,100. It has been noted that this Sedum is unlike all others - not only are the leaves in rosettes more like Echeverria, but it has other anomalous characteristics including extremely short flowering-stems with the white fragrant flowers in dense clusters. It also has an extremely high chromosome count of 2n=circa 640, which at the time of its discovery was the highest chromosome count known for a plant. It is most closely related to Sedum craigii, which itself is considered quite un-Sedum-like. The specific epithet is Latin for "sweet smelling". A really cute plant but a weak grower and susceptible to mealybug infestations - we grew it from 2003 until 2011 but no longer offer this plant. 

The information displayed on this page about Sedum suaveolens is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.