Why and How to Add Sedges and Grasses to Your Landscape
- horticulturist and gardening expertApril 26, 2025
Sedges and grasses add beauty, texture, and motion to our gardens and landscapes. You can purchase annual sedges and grasses that provide beauty for one growing season in your gardens and containers, allowing you to replace them with something new or repeat what you like the following year. Or opt for perennial sedges and grasses when you want a plant that provides years of beauty.
Birch & Northwind Panicum
Why add Sedges and Grasses to your Yard
You’ll enjoy many benefits when adding these low-maintenance plants to your gardens.
As with any plant, make sure the ones you select will fit in the growing space once mature. With a wide range of sizes and interesting foliage, you are sure to find ones suitable for the available space, whether gardening in containers, a small city lot, or a larger yard. Look for the plants best suited to the growing conditions, including sunlight, soil type, moisture, and your hardiness zone. Look to sedges for those shady, moist spots, but do not rule them out for other areas, as some tolerate full sun and drier soil conditions. Most grasses prefer full sun and well-drained soil and are drought-tolerant once established. Use Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa) for those moist, shady areas when you prefer a grass.
Lantana, Toffee Twist Carex & Sanvitalia
Avoid aggressive grasses and sedges when space is limited or you prefer not to spend the time and energy needed to contain them. Don’t plant invasive species of these or other plants in your gardens. Invasive plants leave the boundaries of your landscape and move into nearby natural spaces, disrupting the ecosystem. Not only does this create a problem for native plants, beneficial insects, and songbirds it also means more work for you as you weed them and their seedlings out of your landscape.
What is a Sedge
There are over 2000 species of sedges, and they can be found all over the world. Some are annual, dying back after flowering and setting seed in one year. Others are perennial, returning each growing season if hardy in your location. Some are evergreen while others turn brown as temperatures drop in fall and winter.
Sedges (Carex spp.) look similar to grasses, but take a closer look for an easy way to differentiate the two. The old saying “sedges have edges” results from the leaves wrapping around the solid triangular stem. The many species of grasses, on the other hand, have hollow, round stems. Don’t confuse these two with rushes (Juncus) that have solid, round stems and very few leaves. All three are members of the grass family and do not develop a woody structure like bushes. Like any plant, grow them in the right place for the growing conditions and your landscape goals.
Prairie Dropseed Sporobolus Heterolepis
Uses of Sedges
Include these plants in natural, informal, and even more formal gardens and containers. Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepsis) reminds me of fountain grass, often used in formal garden beds, but it provides many more benefits. Hardy in zones 3 to 8, it is a host plant for several caterpillars, provides food for songbirds, and is deer resistant. It provides year-round beauty with attractive foliage, pretty coriander-scented flowers, fall color, and winter interest. Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is also adaptable to various garden styles, serves as a host plant for several different caterpillars, is deer resistant, and provides year-round beauty. Some of the newer little bluestem cultivars, like Jazz, Standing Ovation, The Blues, and Carousel, are less prone to flopping but still exhibit the same year-round appeal.
Carex-siderosticha-Variegata
Add some color to your gardens and mix borders with grasses and sedges with colorful or variegated foliage. Variegated broadleaf sedge (Carex siderosticha ‘Variegata’) brightens the shade with the white stripes that line the leaf edges. Combine leatherleaf sedge with fine coppery colored leaves with blue, pink, and peach flowers or coral bells with complementary colored foliage. Grow Bowles golden sedge (Carex elata ‘Aurea’) in full sun to light shade spaces for a pop of color from its chartreuse foliage. Incorporate these and other grasses and sedges in your flowerbeds, providing a backdrop to flowering plants and a bit of textural contrast, putting the spotlight on the flowers. Intersperse them throughout the garden or mixed border to provide unity and continuity within your gardens and landscape.
Use shorter varieties as a groundcover, an alternative to lawn grass, or to create a meadow. Sedges offer a variety of benefits, including cover for beneficial insects, toads, and frogs, and food for some caterpillars and songbirds. Native Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pennsylvanica) is often used as a groundcover for shady areas, tolerating full shade and dry soil once established. Rosy sedge (Carex rosea) prefers shade and tolerates a wide range of soils from dry to wet. Meadow sedge (Carex perdentata) is a good choice for the southwest while the California native clustered field sedge (Carex praegracilis) tolerates alkaline soil and can be used as a lawn alternative. Contact your local University extension service or your local garden center for a list of sedges suitable to your location.
Carex Pennsylvanica
Consider joining other gardeners now using sedges as living mulches. Plant these among your larger perennials to cover and protect the soil and suppress weeds in the open areas of the garden bed and borders.
Use upright varieties of grasses and sedges as a vertical accent in gardens and containers, and taller grasses for screening in the landscape. Karl Foerster feather reed grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) is often used for its narrow upright habit. The many cultivars of our native switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) tend to grow in clumps versus spreading rapidly, allowing gardeners to incorporate them into their gardens. Although big bluestem (Androgogan gerardii) is a large grass, newly introduced cultivars are a bit smaller providing more options for your landscape.
Besides their aesthetic value, both sedges and grasses help keep rainwater where it falls in the landscape. The leaves help slow and capture rainfall, allowing it to seep into the ground, reducing runoff into the storm sewer and our waterways. Ornamental grasses’ deep roots create pathways for water to travel from the soil surface into the ground. The soil and roots of sedges and grasses help remove dust and pollutants from rainwater before it reaches the groundwater.
How to Plant Sedges
Soil preparation and proper planting are just as important for these as any garden plant. Improve drainage in heavy soils and increase water-absorbing ability in fast-draining soils by incorporating compost. This is also a good time to add Milorganite fertilizer. Its low-nitrogen slow-release formulation encourages balanced above and below-ground growth that is more drought-tolerant and less susceptible to insects and diseases. It also contains 85% organic matter, feeding the soil as well as your plants.
Check the tags for proper spacing and plant the sedges and grasses at the same depth they were growing in the container. Water thoroughly at planting and often enough to keep the roots and surrounding soil slightly moist. Gradually reduce watering frequency to encourage a deep, robust root system that is better able to tolerate drought, insect pests, and disease. Mulch the soil with shredded leaves, evergreen needles, or other organic matter to help conserve moisture, suppress the weeds, and improve the soil as they decompose.
Carex-muskingumensis-Oehme
Avoid tilling under trees when planting sedges, grasses, and other plants there. The majority of tree roots are in the top 12 inches so tilling can damage the roots responsible for absorbing water and nutrients and providing support. Use hand tools to remove existing grass and weeds. Avoid damage to large roots when digging; do not cut off those growing above the soil surface. These wounds create entryways for insects and disease that can damage the trees.
Do not add additional soil over the roots, which may lead to decline and even death of the tree. Instead, plant in the existing soil. Dig as small a hole as possible between major roots. Cover the roots, water and mulch. Monitor soil moisture as the tree’s canopy not only casts shade but also prevents most of the rainfall from reaching the soil below. Much of the water that does land on the soil will be absorbed by the trees. Look for dry shade-tolerant perennial plants to grow in these locations. Provide sufficient water for the first few years as the plants become established.
Look for sedges and grass plants at your favorite garden center or online plant retailer. You can now find a wide variety of plants to purchase and grow in your gardens. Always make sure the plant you select is hardy for your area, suitable for the space and growing conditions, and is not invasive in your area. Adding the right sedge or grass to your landscape can provide years of beauty and benefits for you, pollinators, and songbirds to enjoy.
