Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.

perennial

• Long, strap-shaped leaves with sharp edges and pointed tips grow to 90cm (3ft) long. They have 3-4 pleats along their length.  
• Arching flower stems appear from within the clump in May and June. They can reach 1.4m (4½ft) and bear drooping, catkin-like spikes of yellow-brown flowers.  
• Flowerheads turn into seedheads in June and July, each with hundreds of small seeds that ripen from green to brown.

Pendulous sedge is a UK native, found throughout the country in woodland, hedgerows and along riverbanks. Its preference for damp soil makes it a useful perennial for gardens on heavy, clay soils and for planting in bog gardens and around ponds.

Pendulous sedge grows well in damp shade and complements plants with large rounded leaves, such as hostas  

How invasive is pendulous sedge? 

Pendulous sedge self-seeds readily, with each flower spike producing hundreds of seeds. Many fall and germinate around the base of its parent – so a single plant can quickly become a clump of several. This is good news if you are growing it in a ‘tricky’ spot, such as on a steep bank, but may not be so welcome in ornamental borders or next to lawns.  

Seed is also easily transported by the wind, so you may find new plants popping up around your garden. Luckily, deadheading pendulous sedge prevents self-seeding, and it is easy to remove any seedlings that do appear.

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Long arching flower spikes are held above the leaves, making deadheading easy

Do I need to get rid of pendulous sedge? 

No – allowing pendulous sedge to grow in a woodland-edge border, bog garden, wildlife corner, damp meadow or less-cultivated area is a great way to boost the biodiversity of your garden and support your garden’s wildlife.  

It is, however, a good idea to promptly deadhead plants if you don’t want them to self-seed. You can manage the size of established plants, by dividing them in spring, so they don’t smother nearby plants.

What is the easiest way to kill pendulous sedge? 

If you have pendulous sedge growing where it is not wanted, there are several ways to control it:

In borders

• Deadhead flower spikes – promptly remove flower spikes in midsummer, before they develop into seeds, to prevent self-seeding. Cut these down to within the foliage to keep the clump looking neat. 
• Reduce the size of established plants – use a sharp spade to cut out and lift away outer sections of the clump in mid- to late spring. This stops plants getting too large for their allotted space and smothering others growing nearby.  
• Fork out seedlings – use a hand fork to remove seedlings as soon as they are seen, inserting it to its full depth to get the rootball out in one go. Removing plants when they are young, compared to digging out established clumps, is easy and reduces soil disturbance. 
• Dig out plants – do some exploratory digging around the rootball to determine its spread and depth, then use a border fork to lever the plant from the soil. You may need another pair of hands to lift out a large clump. Backfill the resulting hole with topsoil.  
• Improve drainage – mulch your borders with organic matter, annually in spring, to improve drainage and make conditions less favourable for pendulous sedge.

In lawns 

• Mow regularly – unlike lawn grasses, pendulous sedge does not cope well with regular mowing, and plants will quickly lose vigour and die if their leaves are regularly trimmed.  
• Dig out plants and reseed bare patches – use a hand fork or trowel to dig out individual plants that appear among your sward. Use topsoil or garden compost to fill any resulting holes before sowing grass seed. This is best done in spring or autumn when grass seed will germinate quickly and grow strongly.  
• Keep lawn grass in good health – a good spring/summer and autumn maintenance regime encourages dense grass growth, making it harder for the seeds of pendulous sedge to find bare soil on which to germinate.

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