Cyperus
Cyperus alternifolius
Stands in water quite happily, so long as that water is refreshed rather than left to go stagnant.
- Type
- Houseplant · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Part shade
- Feeding
- All-purpose balanced
- Frost tolerant
- No
- Flowering
- June
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Dec Flowering
- Jan–Mar Flowering
- Plant spacing
- 17.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 17.7 in
- Between rows
- 22 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Rooted in the mud, under water
- Working depth
- 6–18 in
- Can reach
- 24 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 18 in–3 ft across, about 1–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 8 in of soil
It roots into the silt and gets its air down from the leaves, so it drowns in nothing and dies in an afternoon out of water. Plant it in a mesh basket of heavy loam, topped with gravel, and set the basket at the depth the leaves want.
The habit is Cyperus’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Spider mites Spider mites where the air is dry
- Root & crown rot Root rot only when the water is left to stagnate
- Brown tips on the leaves when humidity drops
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Spider mites
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Spider mites
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Spider mites
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Spider mites
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Predatory mites Phytoseiulus & AmblyseiusHunts Spider mites
Fast orange mites that hunt spider mites egg-by-egg, and cousins that clear thrips and fungus-gnat larvae. Sold as a biological control for greenhouses; outdoors they follow humidity — mist and mulch, don’t dust with sulfur.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Spider mites
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
Green-leaved houseplants, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com