Gardening Guides
Great Design Plant: Cape Rush
Versatile and adaptable, this low-maintenance ornamental grass provides an element of calm
Your garden serves as an outdoor sanctuary — your personal refuge from the distractions and pressures of daily life. If your current plantings aren’t taking you to that special place or require too much maintenance, consider cape rush (Chondropetalum tectorum), the perfect exotic and ornamental grass that only looks like it took forever to cultivate.
Browse landscape designs | More great design plants
Browse landscape designs | More great design plants
Distinguishing traits. Cape rush is architectural yet still distinctly a grass. It arcs and bows with the breeze but clearly defines its shape and place in space. Banded sinuous green stems persist throughout the year, while small brown flowers appear in terminal clusters come summer.
How to use it. Cape rush is tolerant of a wide range of soil types and moisture, making it versatile and adaptable in a number of settings. It provides a calming visual addition to an aquatic garden or around a pool, and its coastal tolerance makes proximity to water all the more attainable.
Cape rush is also well suited to dry landscapes, and its breezy movement alludes to water in landscapes lacking that feature. Add natural slope stability to a hillside or use it for textural contrast in a minimalist garden.
Keep it growing. Hardy to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, cape rush grows most successfully planted in full sun. While cape rush is drought tolerant once established, it can always benefit from occasional supplemental watering to enliven it.
Early spring calls for the removal of spent foliage to allow for new growth to emerge. Unlike other clump perennial grasses, cape rush needs its old stems removed individually as opposed to cut down to the ground. Divide every few years to promote healthy growth.
More great design plants:
Black Mondo Grass | Blue Chalk Sticks | Feather Reed Grass | Hens-and-Chicks | New Zealand Wind Grass | Redtwig Dogwood | Toyon
Great design trees:
Bald Cypress | Chinese Witch Hazel | Japanese Maple | Manzanita | Persian Ironwood
Smoke Tree | Tree Aloe
Great design flowers:
Catmint | Golden Creeping Jenny | Pacific Coast Iris | Red Kangaroo Paw | Sally Holmes Rose
Slipper Plant | Snake Flower
Early spring calls for the removal of spent foliage to allow for new growth to emerge. Unlike other clump perennial grasses, cape rush needs its old stems removed individually as opposed to cut down to the ground. Divide every few years to promote healthy growth.
More great design plants:
Black Mondo Grass | Blue Chalk Sticks | Feather Reed Grass | Hens-and-Chicks | New Zealand Wind Grass | Redtwig Dogwood | Toyon
Great design trees:
Bald Cypress | Chinese Witch Hazel | Japanese Maple | Manzanita | Persian Ironwood
Smoke Tree | Tree Aloe
Great design flowers:
Catmint | Golden Creeping Jenny | Pacific Coast Iris | Red Kangaroo Paw | Sally Holmes Rose
Slipper Plant | Snake Flower
Common names: cape rush, small cape rush
USDA zones: 8 to 10
Water requirement: Low
Sun requirement: Full sun to partial shade
Mature size: 2 to 3 feet tall and wide
Tolerances: Drought, deer, coastal, soil