Description

Spartina bakeri is a stellar performer in west coast gardens with year-round good looks and surprising drought tolerance. Its upright form is great for screening, meadow edges, and as a tall background for most ground cover and flowering grasses. The flowers are insignificant and don't compete with the showy flowers of other flowering grasses. In the fall when it's fine-textured, the evergreen foliage makes a good backdrop for other grasses and shrubs displaying their autumn colors.

I love cord grass because of its effortless growing requirements. It can handle most soil conditions from saline and alkaline so it's happy near the coast and in poor soils. It takes seasonal wetness well, performing well in bioswales and rain gardens.

Cord grass combines well with my favorite 1-2-3 mix of Pennisetum spathiolatum, Festuca mairei, and Bouteloua gracilis. So use it the way I do in my designs, combining it with tall flowering perennials like Salvias, Verbena bonariensis, and Helianthus.