Delosperma lineare

Delosperma lineare is a small hardy succulent plant with fleshy foliage and golden yellow flowers. This creeping perennial densely carpets walls, rockeries, and borders with tender green foliage, which is covered in sun-like flowers in summer and turns reddish bronze in winter. Like all Delosperma, this botanical species thrives in full sun in lean, well-drained soils, even in very dry conditions in summer. But unlike many others, it survives severe frosts. It also grows well in pots.

Delosperma lineare belongs to the family Aizoaceae. Like all Delosperma, it is a South African perennial plant that thrives in poor, well-drained soil and full sun. If your region experiences frosts close to -15 °C, place it in a pot or container that you can bring indoors during winter. This Delosperma, or perennial purslane, develops creeping, branching, prostrate stems. They bear numerous small succulent leaves that are ovate, thick, tender green with often reddish tips, becoming bronze to reddish under cold temperatures. They are sessile, meaning they have no petiole and are directly attached to the stems. Together, they form a very low (5cm (2in)) carpet that flowers abundantly in June-July. Depending on the climate, a few flowers may bloom outside of these periods, between February and November. The clustered flowers have a golden yellow colour around a more orange centre. This flowering brings vibrant colours to the most deprived areas of the garden. The flowers only open in the sun. 

Delosperma lineare is a rockery plant par excellence, but it is also an excellent variety for flower pots. It thrives in slightly arid areas of the garden, sometimes difficult to landscape: a dry and rocky slope, a dry stone wall, between the stones of a sunny rockery… Sedums, dwarf carnations, campanulate wallflowers, and creeping Gypsophila are good companions for this exotic-looking carpet, as well as Valerian plants (Centranthus), with which it shares the same needs: sun and dry soil, both in winter and summer.