Tufted Hair Grass
Deschampsia cespitosa
One of the few grasses that will take shade and heavy clay both — and it seeds itself around by way of thanks.
- Type
- Grass · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Gold and chartreuse
- Sunlight
- Full sun to partial shade, and it takes more shade than most grasses.
- Watering
- Prefers moisture, and does well in heavy or clay ground.
- Feeding
- No feeding needed; average to poor soil suits it.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Cut back hard to 10 cm in late February, every year.
- Overwintering
- Hardy through winter with no protection.
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 23.6 in
- In-row spacing
- 23.6 in
- Between rows
- 2 ft 6 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A dense fibrous mat
- Working depth
- 8–24 in
- Can reach
- 5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 24 in–4 ft across, about 1–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
Thousands of fine roots knit the top of the soil into a turf, which is what holds a bank together and what makes an established clump so hard to lift. Prairie grasses send a few roots far below the mat as well.
The habit is Tufted Hair Grass’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.
Grasses, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com