Spiny Headed Mat Rush Lomandra longifolia Verday

Verday is a selected form of longifolia chosen for consistency, with deep glossy green leaf, narrower and more evenly presented than the wild plant, and a clump that stays upright and tidy instead of splaying open through the middle. Its practical distinction is wet tolerance: it takes inundation for days on end, then handles a dry summer once the roots are down. That combination is exactly what a bioretention plant has to do, which is why it lands on civil schedules for wet basins, swale bases and roadside verges.

Basin bottoms and batter faces

It grows through most of the country, taking frost, coastal wind, heavy clay, engineered filter media and long dry spells, in full sun or part shade. Plant it at around 600 millimetre centres, roughly three per square metre, and closer at the base of a swale where cover has to close before the next storm event moves soil. It establishes quickly from small pots, which is what makes it workable at civil job quantities. Spring flower spikes are cream to yellow and honey scented, held on stiff prickly stalks tucked in among the leaves. The failure mode is thatch. Because it is tough and gets planted on sites nobody visits, dead leaf accumulates deep at the base year after year, and the clump slowly browns out through the middle while still looking green on top, which also builds a fire load in a rural setting. It needs a hard cut back on a cycle, not permanent neglect. Second point: leaf tips on any longifolia are genuinely sharp, so set it back from path edges and play areas rather than hard against them.

Verday or the straight species

The comparison that matters is Lomandra longifolia itself. The seed grown species is larger, coarser and variable from plant to plant, which suits rough revegetation and looks uneven in a designed planting. Verday is uniform and finer, sits lower, and copes better with a basin that holds water, so it is the pick for anything that will be inspected or handed over to a client. Where a site is subtropical, shaded and damp rather than open and exposed, Lomandra hystrix gives softer brighter foliage and better form in low light, though it is less reliable through frost. And where the job is a low formal edge rather than a basin or a slope, no longifolia belongs in it.

The three year renovation

Every three or four years cut the whole clump back hard in late winter, low and all at once, before new growth moves. That clears the thatch, resets the shape and gives clean regrowth by spring, and on a large planting a brushcutter does it faster than shears. Between renovations, pull out dead leaf by hand and remove spent flower stalks. Feed with a slow release native fertiliser low in phosphorus in early spring, particularly in the season after a hard cut back, and water through the first summer while the roots establish. More in natives.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 3 sizes, from 125mm up to 200mm, priced from $16.95 to $29.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to low water gardens.