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Chasmanthium latifolium |
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| Early August |
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| Early October |
Common name |
sea oats |
Family |
poaceae |
Life cycle |
perennial grass |
Flowers |
golden tan |
Size |
3-4 ft |
Light |
full sun-part shade |
Cultural notes |
ordinary garden soil |
From seed  |
germinate at room temperature - can take a while. self-seeds in our garden Flowers first year from seed sown indoors early.
detailed seed-starting info below
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Seed ripens | early October |
Gracefully arching stems with bluish green foliage and green flowers through summer, turning a nice tan in autumn - nice for dried arrangements. We grow them in clusters, making a fountain of foliage and seedheads. They make a bit of a nuisance of themselves with their aggressive self-seeding (and somewhat difficult to extract root mass), but we wouldn't want to be without them. The species is native to a large swath of the eastern United States.
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| Mid-October
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We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston. Seed for this plant is included on my seed trade list About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Chasmanthium latifolium
Some particularly helpful links to other websites
Visitors to this page have left the following commentsNina Long | Feb 20, 2005 | They have just rebuilt our sand levee at Grand Isle, LA.and we are interested in starting wild sea oats for anchoring the sand and for thier beauty. Where can we get the seeds or the rhizomes? I just chopped down my stand today, else I would have had an indefinite supply of seed - as is, I'm no help. I don't know how well they do in warmer climates - the seed appears to need some cold treatment to germinate. Good luck. |
Lionel Shirley N.Devon Mar 27th 2005 | Mar 27, 2005 | Thank you very much, notes and picturesa most helpful |
Irena Montuori, Guelph, Ontario | Oct 30, 2009 | Yes, it does seed itself, providing the plant has good drainage, sitting in a rather wet area it just rots, therefore be careful where you plant it. It is a wonderful dried decoration for the winter months in the garden or indoors. This plant won a lot of prizes for me in floral competitions. |
PD Wythe, Meeker co., Mn | Jan 11, 2011 | They seem to be very hardy after surviving some brutal winters here in Z3/Z4 land. A real keeper for me. |
Basil Cox | Jan 22, 2012 | Agressively self-seeds in Pittsburgh and difficult to remove and eradicate. |
- Seed wild-collected '98. Cellpack 70F. No germination inside - moved to outside greenhouse after a few weeks, and germination started about a month after sowing
Every year since then, they've self-sowed in my garden - enough for a nice supply, not annoyingly so.
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