Love Thy Neighbour

The Grasses Really Are Greener On The Other Side.

- Lee Ann Bramwell

New Zealanders may beat the hell out of Aussies on the rugby field nine times out of 10, but a number of Australian plants currently residing here run rings around their local equivalents.

Our rivals across the Tasman certainly got the jump on us when it comes to grasses. I used to be a big fan of our native Carex comans, but they weren’t a big fan of me. Even those that survived being rolled on by the cat on a regular basis eventually lost their pretty green colour and turned pale and dead-looking, which they sometimes were.

While I was gently combing out their dead hair in an effort to revitalise them, the Aussies were sending us Lomandra, a drought-tolerant, evergreen and almost indestructible grass that comes in a wide variety of styles, sizes and colours. It looks good with virtually no care and it stifles weeds in a heartbeat.

It exhibits commendable behaviour in wind, sun, drought, partial shade, humidity and even the cold. It’s heavily used in civic plantings around our town – every couple of years, council workers wallop the tops off them with line-trimmers and they bounce back without even looking in danger of dropping the ball. Yes, they look appalling until their hair has grown back, but don’t we all?