Mesembryanthemum cordifolium MEZOO™ Trailing Red – MEZOO™ Trailing Red Iceplant

Brighten your landscape arrangements and hanging baskets with this exceptional trailing succulent featuring variegated green and cream foliage! Its fleshy, heart-shaped leaves offer a crisp texture with a delightfully tangy flavour that enhances summer salads. From spring until the first autumn frosts, it covers itself in a multitude of small, daisy-like blossoms of a vibrant magenta-red that open under full sun. Exceptionally drought tolerant, it quickly fills space to form a dense carpet or a spectacular cascade in your containers.

Characteristics

• Foliage: Fleshy, succulent heart-shaped leaves displaying a vibrant light green bordered by a bright cream margin; edible with a crisp texture and a slightly tangy flavour.
• Flowering: Abundance of small, solitary flowers with fine petals in a brilliant magenta-red, blooming continuously under direct sunlight.
• Light: Full sun required to stimulate blooming and maintain well-defined variegation.
• Habit: Trailing and creeping, forming a dense groundcover carpet or long cascading stems.
• Growth: Fast growth rate; rapidly covers available space.
• Soil: Requires light, extremely well-drained, sandy, or gravelly soil.
• Temperature: Hardiness zone 9; grown as an annual or brought indoors before frost.
• Resistances: Excellent resistance to drought, intense heat, and poor soils.

Use

• Types of use: Ideal in focal pots, hanging baskets, containers, planter boxes, or as a groundcover along borders and rock gardens.
• Decorative and culinary benefits: Instantly elevates garden compositions with its two-tone foliage while providing unique edible shoots for fresh dishes.

Maintenance

• Watering: Water moderately, allowing the soil to dry out deeply between waterings; stimulate growth spurts with regular but non-excessive watering.
• Fertilization: Apply a balanced fertilizer for flowering plants at half-strength once a month during the active growing season.
• Pruning: Pinch stem tips as needed to encourage branching and dense habit.
• Planting: Space plants 25 to 30 cm apart when planting outdoors in spring, once all danger of frost has passed.
• Winter protection: Bring indoors before the first frost to overwinter in a warm, bright location if desired.

(syn. Aptenia cordifolia MEZOO™ Trailing Red, Dorotheanthus bellidiformis MEZOO™ Trailing Red, MEZOO™ Trailing Red Livingstone Daisy, Mesembryanthemum x 'Mesbicla' MEZOO™ Trailing Red)