Scale Grass
Miniature Rush Ground Cover

By
Rex Ploederer

 

During a showing of my Ward Wardville and Western railroad, a visitor looked at the stream that ran between two mountains in our front yard and commented that it looked like some of the places he’d seen in the western states.  (See Figure 1)   Several of the visitors were particularly interested in the ground cover that was growing in and along the stream. 

Figure 1

While this is a great compliment for achieving realism, my wife and I cannot claim the credit.  Developing well beyond our intentions, the ground cover had jumped the pond liner and grown in our shallow streams.  This was as much of a surprise to the owner of Under A Foot Plant Co. (Stepables brand groundcovers), as it was a thrill to us garden railroaders (See Figure 2).


Figure 2

Stepables calls the plant “Miniature Rush” or Eleocharis radicans for the Master Gardeners among us.  We planted it to look like range grass or “Buffalo Grass” found in the western high plains.  In this photo (See Figure 3), you can see it on the left side of the train on the far side of the bridge.

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Figure 3

The description from the tag follows: “Thousands of tiny grass-like blades rise just above ground.  This lawn substitute is deep green topped by white, tiny flower beads.  Readily reseeds itself.  Loves wet feet and is perfect for pond border.”  My guess is the last sentence explains why it grows in shallow water.

Granted, our ponds and streams had become filled with silt before the ground covers began to fill in and hold the soil.  And I’m sure the silt helped the plants by providing a footing in which they could grow.  But last year we removed all of the silt and placed clean pea gravel in the bottom of the streams.  Yet with little but the pea gravel to sustain them, the plants have returned this year and are once again thriving.

The plant goes dormant in winter.  It may suffer from cold and snow but makes its return each spring.  This photo (See Figure 4) shows a close up of the ground cover, which to me in or out of water, looks very much to scale on a garden railroad.

 
Figure 4