These have thick stems, branching each year, eventually giving an unusual structure, clothed with many fleshy leaves. The tips of the new stems are crowded with small, long-lasting flowers, yellow, orange or red, the colour remaining until the autumn. They have proved to be perfectly hardy for many years in our garden in Scotland.

Rhodiola semenovii is an interesting and unusual succulent from central Asia, which makes a clump of almost parallel, upright stems, lined with deep green, linear leaves, and with the top part making a cylinder packed with lots of small flowers, each one a narrow red/pink tube. The plants keeps its structural interest even after flowering, as the seeding stem remains intact through to autumn.