Luzula
Luzula nivea
Happy in dry shade, where most grasses sulk — it seeds about gently and asks for nothing else.
Light Full shade through to partial shade.
Water Needs little water once established.
Height 40 cm
Spread 11.8 in
Spacing 30 cm
Root depth 8–24 in
- Type
- Grass · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Variegated with white
- Sunlight
- Full shade through to partial shade.
- Watering
- Needs little water once established.
- Feeding
- Minimal feeding required.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Comb the dead leaves out in late winter.
- Overwintering
- Hardy enough to leave out through winter, unprotected.
- Mar–May Spring Growth
- May–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Dec Growing
- Dec–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 11.8 in
- In-row spacing
- 11.8 in
- Between rows
- 15 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
- 12–24 in 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 Luzula’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.
- Old foliage looks tatty by late winter — comb the dead leaves out.
- Very few pests or diseases bother this plant.
Green-leaved grasses, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com