Prairie dropseed
Sporobolus heterolepis
Fine, fountaining tufts for a dry, gravelly spot — clay is the one thing it will not forgive.
- Type
- Grass · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Gold and chartreuse
- Sunlight
- Full sun, essential.
- Watering
- Drought-tolerant once established.
- Feeding
- Better left unfed.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- July
- Pruning
- Cut back to 10 cm in late February.
- Apr–Jul Spring Growth
- Jul–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Dec Growing
- Dec–Dec Winter Dormancy
- Jan–Apr Winter Dormancy
- 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 Prairie dropseed’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.
Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Liatris, Amsonia
Grasses, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com