Planting Ideas
Northern sea oats are native to moist, woodland edges which makes them a great addition to part-shade gardens. Create a woodland meadow with a collection of shade-tolerant grasses. You’ll love the easy-care aspect of a meadow planting and count on a bounty of color and texture year-round. Other great grasses for part-shade sites include tufted hair grass (Deschampsia cespitosa), Korean feather reed grass (Calamagrostis brachytricha), Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra), and sedges. Design a dreamy patrial shade garden using this plan.
Northern Sea Oats Care Must-Knows
Northern sea oats are a great grass for part-shade sites. Many grasses demand full sun for strong, upright growth and good color, but this tough perennial grows best in partial shade. Count on its leaves to take on a dark green color in partial shade; full-sun plants have light green foliage. Northern sea oats grow well in fertile soil and moist, well-drained sites. It will tolerate drought with ease once it establishes a strong root system. What is well-drained soil? Find out here.
Creeping Tendencies
There’s rarely a need to plant more than one clump of Northern sea oats. This native grass spreads slowly through its rhizome habit of growth and quickly through reseeding. Prolific seed heads cast out seed in fall and the following spring will reveal a host of new Northern sea oats plants. The seedlings are easy to remove but the task can be time-consuming. Prevent bold reseeding by cutting off seed stalks in late summer.
Plant Northern Sea Oats With:
This native perennial gets its name from the shape of its unusual flowers, which resemble the heads of snapping turtles. It’s a good choice for heavy, wet soils and spreads to form dense colonies of upright stems bearing pink, rose, or white flowers from late summer into fall. It grows best in some shade, but tolerates full sun with adequate moisture. For a fall show, plant leadwort. Its gentian-blue late-season flowers often continue to bloom even as the foliage turns brilliant red-orange in fall, making an outstanding autumn display. This plant is also sometimes called plumbago, but it’s different from shrubby tropical plumbago. Use it as a groundcover that spreads well when in conditions it likes – dry sites in full sun to partial shade. Asters get their name from the Latin word for “star,” and their flowers are indeed the superstars of the fall garden. Some types of this native plant can reach up to 6 feet with flowers in white and pinks but also, perhaps most strikingly, in rich purples and showy lavenders. Not all asters are fall bloomers. Extend the season by growing some of the summer bloomers, as well. Some are naturally compact; tall types that grow more than 2 feet tall benefit from staking or an early-season pinching or cutting back by about one-third in July or so to keep the plant more compact.
