It amazes me that native sedges aren’t more widely known and planted in gardens. What’s not to love?!
Little fountains of cascading grass-like foliage, so tidy. Zero effort required for them to flourish. Super habitat value, hosting the larvae of various butterflies and moths, and supporting many beneficial insects.
The sedge revolution requires that we all start asking for these wonderful plants at nurseries!
Here are a few of my favourites.
Bristle-leaved sedge (Carex eburnea)
Bristle-leaved sedge (Carex eburnea)
Height: 6 in to 12 in
Flowers: greenish white
Blooming period: spring
Exposure: shade to sun
Soil: regular
Bristle-leaved sedge is a fantastic addition to the woodland garden. Growing is tidy, rounded clumps, with thin, narrow leaves, it looks great when planted in masses along the woodland border. The flowers are small, on spikes, as are the seedheads, which persist through winter and produce tiny black seeds.
Plantain-leaved sedge (Carex plantaginea)
Plantain-leaved sedge (Carex plantaginea)
Height: 1 ft
Flowers: yellowish green
Blooming period: mid-spring
Exposure: shade to partial shade
Soil: regular to moist
Specialist pollinator interactions: larval host for Appalachian brown butterfly
If you’re looking for a low-growing, grass-like plant as a groundcover in shade, this perennial, clump-forming sedge is an excellent choice. Its leaves are unusually wide for a sedge, with distinctive veins, and are often evergreen, persisting over winter. Other attractive features are the reddish-purple sheaths and the small but distinctive flowers in mid-spring, which stand erect, emerging above the leaves. Wind-pollinated, the plant spreads vegetatively.
Fox Sedge (Carex vulpinoidea)
Fox sedge (Carex vulpinoidea)
Height: 1.5 ft to 3.5 ft
Flowers: green to golden and brown
Blooming period: late spring to early summer
Exposure: sun to partial sun
Soil: moist to wet
Specialist pollinator interactions: larval host for broad-winged skipper, mulberry skipper, two-spotted skipper, black dash, dion skipper, duke’s skipper, eyed brown, grass-miner moth, tufted sedge moth
Like many sedges, this one requires moist conditions and is grown in gardens mainly for its foliage, which form dense tufts of narrow leaves. Useful in rain gardens, where it tolerates flooding, it can spread to form colonies.
Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica)
Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica)
Height: 6 in to 1 ft
Flowers: creamy green
Blooming period: mid- to late spring
Exposure: shade to sun
Soil: regular to dry; drought tolerant
Specialist pollinator interactions: larval host for Elachista argentosa moth, Elachista madarellamoth
A great choice for dry, shady conditions, this clump-forming perennial sedge is low-growing, forms attractive, arching tufts, and doesn’t take any work to maintain. It takes on a purplish cast when in bloom, and is cross-pollinated by wind, also producing clonal colonies. It does best in humus-rich soil high in organic matter.
More sedge profiles to come in a future post!