Plant Library

Other Names:  New Zealand Hair Sedge

Group/Class:  ColorGrass Series

Description:

A graceful ornamental grass featuring upright, slender, green-bronze foliage tipped with orange highlights; orange color intensifies in full sun, and persists in warmer climates; low maintenance, and becomes quickly established in borders or containers

Ornamental Features

Prairie Fire™ Sedge is primarily valued in the garden for its interestingly mounded form. Its attractive grassy leaves are grayish green in colour with prominent orange tips and tinges of coppery-bronze. The foliage often turns tan in fall.

Landscape Attributes

Prairie Fire™ Sedge is an open herbaceous evergreen perennial grass with a mounded form. It brings an extremely fine and delicate texture to the garden composition and should be used to full effect.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Prairie Fire™ Sedge is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Rock/Alpine Gardens
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Groundcover
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Prairie Fire™ Sedge will grow to be about 20 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 24 inches. Its foliage tends to remain dense right to the ground, not requiring facer plants in front. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. As an evegreen perennial, this plant will typically keep its form and foliage year-round.

This plant performs well in both full sun and full shade. It prefers to grow in moist to wet soil, and will even tolerate some standing water. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in both summer and winter to conserve soil moisture and protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

Prairie Fire™ Sedge is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It can be used either as 'filler' or as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, depending on the height and form of the other plants used in the container planting. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden. Be aware that in our climate, most plants cannot be expected to survive the winter if left in containers outdoors, and this plant is no exception. Contact our experts for more information on how to protect it over the winter months.

At Shelmerdine, we treat this plant as a "HOBBY PLANT" meaning that it is not recognized as winter-hardy in our Zone 3 climate. However, there is a possibility that it could survive winter. Regardless of whether it survives a winter or not, this plant is only warrantied until Nov. 1 of its season of purchase.