We love any plants that attract our native blue-winged wasps, Scolia dubia, to the garden, and few plants do that better in fall than the beautiful Sedum ‘Frosted Fire’. These amazing beneficial pollinators attack pesky insects like Japanese beetle grubs, so this is an insect you want to attract to your garden. In our area, blue-winged wasps are present most of the summer, but they seem to peak for us in August and September. When they aren’t busy feeding, they actually tunnel in the ground seeking out grubs, which are killed by their sting. The dead grub then is stored as a buffet for the next generation of wasps. The wasps have no interest in, and pose no danger to humans.
Below is the same patch a few days later as the flowers open fully.
Oh wow. Thanks for this valuable information on blue wing wasps. Anything other plants in addition to the sedum that will attract them?
We see them on many plants, but they are most prevalent in fall on flowering ivy, sedum, and eysenhardtii.
Thank you for including this beneficial insect in your plant information. I just discovered this wasp in my yard this past August, and when researching, I was so happy to find that it was taking care of the grubs in my yard!
If you’d like to learn more, we just posted a video about beneficial wasps to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDigcCusjfA