Add Year-Round Color To Your Garden With A Grassy Plant Named After Chocolate

Adding color to your garden is not just limited to growing flowers. You can also infuse some interesting color and texture using plants with different colored leaves. Plants with grass-like leaves add a different dimension to your landscaping and are usually surprisingly easy to look after, because they require minimal care. One such plant is Carex comans, more commonly known as New Zealand hairy sedge. This is a lovely flowing textured plant, but you can spice your garden up even further if you choose to grow a hybrid known as Carex comans "milk chocolate."

This perennial evergreen plant features brown grass-like leaves that resemble the color of milk chocolate and that can have a pink tinge on the edges. It has a beautiful soft cascading habit, making it perfect for planting along borders. It only reaches a height of around 1 to 2 feet and the very fine leaves give the illusion of an unruly mop of hair. Milk chocolate sedge looks stunning when planted in drifts in your garden beds, but can also make an interesting potted plant for your patio. It's a nice, non-scented, but colorful, option to incorporate. 

Carex comans originates in New Zealand, where it's commonly found growing along roadside verges and in pastures. It can be grown in sunny spots in the garden, but will also tolerate some shade. The plant can handle a wide range of soil types, but prefers soils that are moist and well-draining. It can be grown in USDA hardiness zones 7 through 10 and is one of a number of different colorful ornamental grasses that you can add to your landscape. 

Once the plant is well-established, it is somewhat drought-hardy, so it can survive periods of dry weather without the need for supplementary watering. It does produce flowers in summer, but these are small and more insignificant, because the plant is primarily grown for its attractive foliage. The flowers do produce seeds and these can germinate quite readily. So, if you're growing this lovely plant in a meadow garden, you'll find that it can naturalize easily. You can also divide larger clumps in spring and plant these around your garden. The only maintenance this easy-care plant requires is the removal of any dead leaves to maintain its attractive appearance.

There are many ways that you can use this attractive plant in your landscape. It makes a lovely border plant around ponds or along streams if you have some natural waterways in your yard. It's also perfect for adding some interesting contrast and winter color to your meadow garden while the flowers are dormant waiting for the warmer spring weather. Using a variety of different sedges, including this lovely chocolate-colored one, is also a low-maintenance way to create an eye-catching front lawn without grass.

If you have a rock garden, this plant looks amazing when planted among the rocks and allowed to cascade softly over them. It's also a stunning way to soften up the hard edges along your driveway or other paths in your garden. And, it creates a lovely soft border around your large flower beds or as a lower growing edging plant around your taller shrubs and trees. Another interesting way to use this plant in your landscaping is to grow it in tall pots where the foliage can drape softly over the edges. Place these at your home's front entrance or around your outdoor entertaining area. You'll find that the plant attracts both butterflies and other pollinators to your garden. This even makes it ideal for growing as a border around your vegetable patch, too.