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The Japanese Sweet Rush is a vigourous perennial species - there is no good reason for growing it in the garden if I am honest. It has spawned
a host of variegated forms that are delightful details in a container or some such. As the clumps expand they take on the untidy aspect
of sheeps wool caught on barbed wire. There is something disorganised and fibrous aboout them. Like ugly children, the attraction is without explanation. The BSBI say: "A rhizomatous perennial herb which persists by the Basingstoke Canal (Surrey) and has since been noted in a scattering of sites by ponds, lakes and canals, often where the plant may have originally been introduced. Lowland. A. gramineus was introduced into cultivation in Britain in 1786, and was first discovered in the wild along the Basingstoke Canal (North Hampshire) in 1986, where it probably arose as a garden throw-out. These original plants are a variegated cultivar which is often grown in water gardens. Almost 30 other records have been made since 2000, including a handful for the variegated form." Devon Pond Plants say: "Acorus gramineus (Japanese sweet flag) is an evergreen grass with plain green leaves, not showy but extremely useful for edging streams and ponds in the shallows. One of the very few evergreen water plants, which may suffer from a little rust in summer or drier conditions." |
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| 12th November 2008 | ||