Sand Cordgrass
Spartina bakeri

This perennial, three foot tall clumping grass is naturaly found along the edges of brackish and freshwater marshes and lakes. It needs full sun and can tolerate dry soils as well as wet. It does not survive in permanently standing water, yet can tolerate one to two weeks of flooding.

The narrow leaves bend gracefully and make great specimens or can be grouped into a mass. Song birds eat the seeds and waterfowl hide among the leaves.

Try mixing this grass with other wetland species along the upper edge of a lake. Golden canna, prairie iris, muhly grass, buttonbush, Virginia willow, red maple, cypress, leather fern, wax myrtle, fakahatchee grass, duck potato and salt bush are good companions.

Scatter clumps in a pineland theme blended with saw palmetto, and other shrubs and wildflowers. This is also a great soil binder which stops errosion.