Little Con Lomandra Lomandra confertifolia Little Con

Most lomandras are planted by the hundred on batters and road verges. Little Con is planted one at a time, at the front of a bed, between stepping stones, along a narrow path or in a wide, reasonably deep pot, where longifolia would be over the paving inside two seasons. It forms a low, rounded clump of fine bright green leaf that holds a neat dome year round. Short cream flower spikes appear in spring, tucked down among the foliage, and bees work them on warm days.

The leaf is the other reason to choose it. Lomandra confertifolia carries much finer, softer foliage than the spiny headed mat rush. Its leaf tips are notched, as on most lomandras, but on a blade only a few millimetres wide they stay soft, without the broad, stiff leaves and spiny flower heads that make longifolia a nuisance beside a footpath, so it can go right up to the edge of a path, a play area or a garden seat where people brush past. It is an Australian native from the eastern states, and like the rest of the genus it is tougher than its fine texture suggests.

Where a small mat rush makes sense

Give it full sun to part shade. In sun the clump stays dense and the colour bright; in deeper shade it opens up and the green dulls, so a bed in shade for most of the day is about its limit. It handles sandy coastal soil, loam and heavier ground provided it drains, takes light frost, coastal wind and long dry spells once established, and needs only low water after its first summer. Water weekly through that first summer, more often in a heatwave, then leave it to rainfall in most districts.

Spacing decides how a planting reads. As an edge or border, set plants close enough that the clumps meet, around 300 to 400 millimetres apart, and a driveway edge closes up within a year or two. In a pot, a single plant in a wide container looks finished from the day it goes in, which is where a 300mm plant earns its size. Potted, it needs regular watering through summer, since the low water rating applies to plants in the ground.

Couch, kikuyu and the crown

Lawn grass is what ruins a small clumping plant. Couch and kikuyu send runners straight into a low tussock, and once they are threaded through the crown they cannot be pulled out without lifting the whole plant. A border of Little Con laid hard against a lawn becomes a strip of couch with lomandra in it inside a couple of summers. Put a solid barrier between the two, a concrete mowing strip or a deep steel or timber edge, and keep a mulched gap so runners show before they reach a clump. If grass does get in, dig the plant out, tease the runners from its roots and replant it, rather than spraying around it.

It also clumps rather than spreads. Gaps between plants never close by themselves, so get the spacing right at planting instead of waiting for it to fill. Routine care is short: a little low phosphorus fertiliser each spring, dead leaves pulled out by hand rather than sheared, and, if a clump has gone shabby after several years, a hard cut down to around 100 millimetres in late winter, after which it regrows clean. Pests rarely bother it.

How it sits beside the other mat rushes

Choose by scale. Lomandra Lime Tuff is a little larger and a lighter lime green, a better fit for long commercial runs and carpark islands where the plant has to read from a moving car. Lomandra longifolia Dalliance is larger again, an arching clump bought for batters and swales, with leaf tips sharp enough that it wants a buffer from paths. Little Con suits close quarters, pots and small courtyard beds. The full spread of sizes and leaf colours is in Mat Rush.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 300mm, at $47.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.