Fantastic Design Plant: Cape Rush

Your garden functions as an outdoor refuge — your personal refuge from the pressures and distractions of everyday life. If your current plantings are not taking you to this particular place or require a lot of maintenance, consider cape dash (Chondropetalum tectorum), the ideal exotic and decorative grass that only looks like it took forever to nurture.

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Botanical name:Chondropetalum tectorum

Common names: cape rush, little cape dash

USDA zones: 8 to 10

Water requirement: Low

Sun requirement: Full sun to partial shade

Mature size: 2-3 feet tall and wide

Tolerances: Drought, deer, coastal, land

Far Out Flora

Distinguishing attributes. Cape dash is architectural yet still distinctly a grass. It arcs and bows with the cinch but obviously defines its shape and place in space. Banded sinuous green stalks persist throughout the year, while little brown flowers appear in terminal clusters come summer.

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The best way to utilize it. Cape dash is tolerant of a wide assortment of soil types and moisture, which makes it versatile and flexible in a number of configurations. It provides a calming visual addition to an aquatic garden or around a pool, and its own coastal tolerance makes proximity to water even more viable.

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Cape dash is also ideal for arid landscapes, and its own breezy motion alludes to water in landscapes lacking that feature. Add natural slope stability to a hillside or utilize it for textural contrast in a minimalist garden.

Far Out Flora

Keep it rising. Hardy to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, cape rush grows most successfully implanted in sunlight. While cape rush is drought tolerant once established, it can always benefit from occasional supplementary watering to enliven it.

Early spring calls for the removal of spent foliage to permit for new growth to emerge. Contrary to other clump perennial grasses, cape rush needs its older stalks removed individually as opposed to cut down to the floor. Divide every few years to encourage wholesome growth.

More excellent layout crops:
Black Mondo Grass | Blue Chalk Sticks | Feather Reed Grass | Hens-and-Chicks | New Zealand Wind Grass | Redtwig Dogwood | Toyon

Amazing layout trees:
Bald Cypress | Chinese Witch Hazel | Western Maple | Manzanita | Persian Ironwood
Smoke Tree | Tree Aloe

Great layout flowers:
Catmint | Golden Creeping Jenny | Pacific Coast Iris | Red Kangaroo Paw | Sally Holmes Rose
Slipper Plant | Snake Flower

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