Mat Rush

Twenty mat rushes are listed here, and the titles do the first sort. Fourteen carry the plain Mat Rush title, named selections raised for even habit. Five are titled Spiny Headed Mat Rush, the Lomandra longifolia end of the range. One is Creek Mat Rush.

The fine leaved selections

Tanika is soft to the hand, arching into a rounded tuft, and holds green through frost, drought and periods of wet feet. Lime Tuff is the compact one for front rows and path edges, offered in eight grades from 75mm up to 250mm. Little Pal is a Lomandra confertifolia, finer again. Colour comes from Little Lime in yellow green, Frosty Top with a cream leaf edge, and Nyalla and Bloomin Bloo in blue grey. All want open sun to hold that tone; in deep shade the leaves stretch and drift back towards plain green, and pale foliage browns at the tips against a hot western wall. Wingarra takes dry shade under established trees. Seascape is the broad leaved one, chosen for salt laden coastal wind.

The spiny headed end

Lomandra longifolia is the straight species, seed grown, so no two plants match in size, leaf width or vigour. Across a batter that variation reads as natural. In a formal row along a townhouse driveway it reads as a mistake. The teeth are worst at this end. Every leaf carries a small cluster at the tip, so keep longifolia clear of narrow paths and play areas, and wear gloves in it. Seed germinates readily in nearby gravel, so cut spent spikes on garden specimens. Verday is the tidier selected form for wet basins and swale bases, taking inundation for days on end and then a dry summer. Empress, Dalliance, gold toned Miners Gold and Katrinus Deluxe fill out this end.

Wet ground and the frost limit

The single Creek Mat Rush comes off subtropical creek banks, taller and glossier, arching at the tip instead of standing stiff, and holds form in shade better than the rest. Its flower spikes are prickly too, so set it back from paths where children brush past. In Canberra, Ballarat or an inland frost hollow it leaves late winter with burnt tips and brown outer leaves that take until midsummer to grow out, while longifolia shrugs the same frost off. Katie Belles handles a softer version of that brief on drainage lines damp through winter and bone dry by February. More on low spots and swales in our guide to planting into clay.

Water, spacing and pruning

Full sun to part shade across the range, evergreen, moderate growth, low water once established. Established lomandra die from kindness more often than neglect: a drip line left on a summer schedule all year, plus heavy nitrogen, invites the fungal leaf blight that browns a clump out through the middle in a humid summer. Keep mulch off the crowns, since a buried base rots, and rake trapped litter out of the fine leaved tufts each autumn before it rots the centre out. Spacing is not one number. The seed grown species wants 800mm to a metre centres, Lime Tuff closes over at 400 to 500mm, creek mat rush at 600 to 700mm. Cut whole clumps back hard in late winter every few years rather than shearing tips annually, and keep the cut above the woody base. Go into that on an old clump and it either recovers slowly or does not come back. Lime Tuff is the exception: tip prune it each late winter, and save the hard cut for a clump that has already opened out.

Seventeen of the twenty offer a 140mm pot, roughly a litre and a half of root; eleven start there. Seven offer a 5L, the only grade for two of them. Pair them with flax lily for foliage colour, or weigh the softer tussocks in ornamental grasses.