Our patches of the evergreen radiating sedge, Carex radiata, are looking lovely in the spring garden. Ranging natively from Canada south to Louisiana, our plants are from a NC population in Halifax County. Although they will tolerate full sun, they are best in light open shade.
Carex picta ‘Bama Beauty’ is looking particularly wonderful in the garden today. Native from Indiana south to Mississippi, this little-known sedge has been delighting us in the garden since 2014, when Zac Hill, JLBG’s Taxonomist and Plant Records Specialist, brought a piece back from a botanizing excursion to Alabama.
In the garden, it’s been very slow to multiply, but we hope to make this available before too much longer. Carex picta is an oddity in being one of very few sedge species that are dioecious–plants are either male or female. This collection is a male selection, which has more showy flowers–as carex go.
We’ve published blogs about a number of carex from our rather large collection (108 species) several times this year, but here are a few more that look great here in early December. We have been fortunate to be able to collect members of this amazing genus from around the world, all of which now reside happily here at JLBG. As you can imagine, the majority of our collections are US native species, but just like with Homo sapiens, we value diversity and consequently don’t profile or discriminate based on ethnicity or origin.
The first is the US native Carex austrolucorum. This is Jeremy’s collection, named Carex ‘Tennessee Mop Top’.,
Carex gentilis ‘Yushan’ is our collection from Taiwan, and the only fall-flowering carex we know. Duke Gardens has made stunning use of this in their magnificent Asian garden expansion.
Carex ‘Silk Tassel’ is a stunning selection of the Japanese Carex morrowii var. temnolepis, brought to the US back in the 1970s by plantsman Barry Yinger. We still view this as one of the finest carex we’ve ever grown. While it grows great in shade, it truly excels in full sun, where its narrow variegated leaves appear silver.
There is a “growing” trend toward using groundcovers to reduce the need for bark mulch in gardens. As with any trend, there is a time and place where it is appropriate, and other times when it is not. One plant that we absolutely love for that purpose is the evergreen Carex flacca ‘Mini’. This blue-foliaged sedge is a Mediterranean native marsh grass that spreads very slowly, so it is not a problem in overrunning other plants in the bed, as long as they aren’t placed too close. These pictured below were planted six years ago on 1′ centers, and are just now knitting together.
We have studied a few reports of this sedge being invasive in parts of the northeast US, but our trials have shown quite the opposite, with nary a seedling in over six years. We can find no scientific research that shows this sedge qualifies as being invasive using any commonly recognized definitions of an invasive plant. Our skepticism of these reports comes because some of the ridiculous listings that appear on invasive species lists, which have no scientific basis. Our favorite invasive faux pas was a listing a couple of years ago of the genus Bambusa on a state invasive list. Never mind the plant is a strict clumper and only flowers once every 100 years. Winter hardiness is Zone 4-9.
Another of our favorite early summer plants is the amazing southeast US native Dichromena colorata (aka: Rhynchospora colorata). Known by the common name, white-top star grass/sedge, this tough-as-nails groundcover can be found inhabiting moist ditches from NC to Texas. The floral show last for 1-2 months, depending on weather. Here, we have it growing in regular garden soil (sandy loam) amended with compost, and irrigated regularly. White-top sedge does spread, but not aggressively. Regardless, we’d recommend keeping away from nearby wimpy growers, which would be quickly consumed. Hardiness is Zone 7a and warmer.
Carex conica ‘Hime’ has been in horticultural commerce for many decades, and remains a superb woodland garden sedge. The evergreen species Carex conica is native throughout Japan, where it occurs in woodland conditions. This variegated selection that goes by an array of names such as ‘Snowline’ and ‘Marginata’, but Carex conica ‘Hime’, which translates to “princess” seems to the the correct cultivar name. The tight 10″ tall x 20″ wide clumps of narrow white-edged leaves are topped with this fascinating floral show for us in early March. In 35 years of growing this, we have yet to see a single garden seedling.
Just captured the wonderful gold-foliaged Carex ‘Everillo’ in full flower by our front grotto waterfall…what a great landscape plant!
Sweeping sedge is in full flower in the garden today. The North American native (Canada south to Florida and west to Texas) Carex bromoides swept us off our feet! This delightful small evergreen sedge forms a 6″ tall x 30″ wide, delicate-textured patch of green hair-like foliage. Although it prefers moist to mucky wet soil, ours has fared beautifully in well ammended compost. Carex bromoides is a favorite meal food for a number of butterfly and skipper caterpillars, wood ducks, grouse, and several songbirds, which in turn eliminates any need for fertilizers. We think you’ll really love Carex bromoides, either as a solitary specimen or in mass.
Back in 2004, I was botanizing in rural Bienville Parish, Louisiana, where I ran across this fascinating narrow-leaf native sedge, a small piece of which returned home for trials. After six years of trialing, we named it Carex retroflexa ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (alluding to the location where the famous pair met their demise) and added it to our catalog offerings, where it sold a whopping 150 plants over a four year span, ending in 2013. The term “whopping” is used here as a point of sarcastical understatement. Not wanting to discard all of the unsold plants, we planted them around our new patio, where they were interspersed with Heuchera ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ and Penstemon ‘Blackbeard’. Here are a few images from that planting, taken this week. Maybe as the interest in carex increases, we can afford to offer this again.
One of our favorite native plants is in full flower in the garden…the unusual white-topped sedge. Dichromena (Rhynchospora) latifolia makes a slowly spreading patch that resembles a carex until the odd white flower spikes occur in mid-summer. Although it usually is found in seasonally flooded sites, we have found it also makes a great specimen in all but the driest garden sites.