Bulrush
Typha latifolia
A pond marginal that will take the whole margin if nothing stops it — site it where the spread can be contained.
- Type
- Grass · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Full sun to partial shade.
- Watering
- Wants shallow water, 10-30 cm deep.
- Feeding
- No feeding needed.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Cut back to water level in late February.
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Winter Dormancy
- Jan–Mar 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
- Rooted in the mud, under water
- Working depth
- 6–18 in
- Can reach
- 24 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 24 in–4 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.
Thick rhizomes run through the pond silt and a stand doubles in area in a season, so cattails are grown in a basket or in a pond you are content to see filled in. They are formidable at cleaning water, which is the reason to bother.
The habit is Bulrush’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.
- Spreads well past wherever it was put.
- Brown leaf tips when it runs dry.
Water Iris, Marsh Marigold, Bogbean, Pickerelweed
Green-leaved grasses, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com