By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on May 26, 2006
Inland seaoats (Chasmanthium latifolium) is the June Plant of the Month for Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!). It is a good grass for landscaping in shady places in the Boerne area.
Some people use it in small clumps or as accent plants, and others use it as groundcover over larger areas. Either way, it is an attractive landscape plant.
Inland seaoats is a special grass for the Boerne chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas. It’s our chapter symbol; it’s on our logo. The latest grass books are using the new names of “broadleaf woodoats” or “creekoats.”
OK, those newer names may better describe its habitat, but many of us probably will have a hard time switching from “inland seaoats.” Besides, unlike the birders, who worldwide adhere to the “official” common names for birds, plant people have no strictly correct common names for plants. Here I’m going to use “inland seaoats.” One day I may get used to “broadleaf woodoats.”
Inland seaoats has bright-green lance-shaped leaves seven or eight inches long and up to an inch wide. The leaf blades alternate up the stem, which usually grows no more than about two feet high in this area. Seedheads at the ends of the stems produce large flattened herringbone spikelets.
Now the seedheads are just starting to develop, but by midsummer, the drooping panicles of oat-like spikelets turn straw-colored and by fall they are golden-brown. Some women I know like to use inland seaoats in dried-flower arrangements. Even in the winter after the grass has turned brown, the herringbone spikelets are showy.
Inland seaoats grows over most of the eastern half of Texas into the Edwards Plateau. It is most common along streams and wooded areas. In the Hill Country it also is commonly found in shaded limestone canyons. It is intolerant of too much sun.
Despite what its natural habitat might suggest, inland seaoats is drought resistant. I find that it is one of the few things that grows fairly well in the dry, shaded soil under large oak trees. Of course it needs a little extra watering when first planted, but once established it survives well without irrigation.
The Boerne chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas provides free planting and care instructions for inland seaoats at nurseries participating in Operation NICE! (Hill Country African Violets and Nursery, Barkley’s Nursery Center and Maldonado Landscape and Nursery).
WHAT’S BLOOMING THIS WEEK
In the interest of showing the continuously changing color that native-plant gardens provide, I promised to report once or twice a month which Texas native and native-compatible plants are blooming in our backyard.
This week reds and purples dominate, and the yellows are taking a back seat.
Red: standing cypress, Salvia darcyi (Mexican), Salvia greggii, skullcap and red yucса.
Purple: purple horsemint, purple coneflowers, prairie verbena, cenizo, Texas thistle, false indigo and Mexican oregano.
Pink: evening primrose, “white” heliotrope, and limestone gaura
Blue: mealy sage, shrubby blue sage, Englemann’s salvia, Salvia guaranitica (South American), indigo spires (hybrid salvia), and last of the bluebonnets.
White: blackfoot daisy, white mealy sage, Texas bindweed, and yucca.
Yellow: bush sunflower, greeneyes, Englemann daisy, prickly pear, zexmenia, coreopsis and slender-stemmed bitterweed.
Orange: Mexican hat, Indian blanket, and lantana.
Where deer can browse: only Mexican hat, prairie verbena, and mealy sage.
