Aptenia cordifolia Golden Cascade - Baby sun rose

Aptenia cordifolia ‘Golden Cascade’, or the Golden Heart-leaved Ice Plant, is a small succulent plant cultivated for its particularly decorative yellow foliage. This carpeting and trailing plant excels in window boxes and hanging baskets. It also forms a bright cushion at the foot of other sun-loving plants, while requiring very little watering. It is mainly used in container plantings, but in coastal gardens, it decorates dry walls, rockeries, or slopes.

Botanically, ‘Golden Cascade’ belongs to the Aizoaceae family and is related to the species Mesembryanthemum cordifolium, better known by its former name Aptenia cordifolia. It is a creeping succulent plant native to the coastal plains of eastern South Africa. ‘Golden Cascade’ is a horticultural cultivar, selected for its compact trailing habit and its golden foliage. The plant remains low, 5 to 10 cm in height, but its flexible stems can trail or creep over 30 to 40 cm, sometimes more. The stems are yellow-green to chartreuse green, succulent, brittle, well-branched and capable of rooting at the nodes in any light substrate. The leaves are opposite, entire, heart-shaped or ovate, 1 to 3 cm long, very fleshy, from yellow-green to bright golden yellow in full sun, equipped with tiny translucent cells that act as small water reservoirs. This foliage is evergreen in mild climates where frost is rare, and also if the plant is grown in a greenhouse; the plant dies below -3 to -5 °C. The flowering, less abundant than in the species, consists of small star-shaped, 1 to 1.5 cm diameter flowers with numerous very fine magenta pink to purple tepals surrounding a centre of yellow stamens; they appear mainly from spring to early autumn. They open in the middle of the day under intense light and close at night or in overcast weather.

If you like Delosperma, you will love Aptenia cordifolia 'Golden Cascade'. In coastal gardens, it can accompany creeping or carpeting sedums and other small dry rockery perennials such as Armeria maritima ‘Splendens’ (Sea Thrift), the carpeting pink Dianthus deltoides ‘Flashing Light’ and creeping thyme ‘Coccineus’. In a planter, its golden foliage and cascading habit combine very well with trailing or semi-trailing sun-loving annuals. For example, you can pair it with petunia ‘Night Sky’, with large dark violet flowers punctuated with white, verbena Endurascape Purple Imp, which quickly forms a flowering cushion, and Calibrachoa Superbells ‘Lemon Slice’, which flowers all summer.

The leaves of Aptenia cordifolia are edible: they add a slightly tangy flavour to salads. In its native regions, it is sometimes used to stabilise slopes and local traditional uses, notably as a fodder or medicinal plant.