Carex pansa

Identification

Description

A very small creeping dune plant. Leaves making little tufts where it is happy. The happier the plant, the bigger the lawn. Needs near beach sand. The only time I've ever seen it look like something the wild was in an inner dune low spot at was moist, then it almost made a lumpy lawn. Cannot compete with alien grasses such as Veldt or Bromus. I've seen it called out for restoration, in that situation it should be either grown from propagules from the site, or divided on site. In yards it will only work in beach sand, moist protected flagstone/paver crack type situations. Someone has been spending time talking this one up. Here's a typical email or conversation. We want a lawn for about 5000 sq. feet of our backyard. However, we don't want to water or mow much (with the emphasis on water). We live in Los Osos where our soil is relatively fine-grained, dirty sand. We have two kids ages 7 and 4 who want to play sports (soccer, wiffle ball, etc.) in the backyard. Carex pansa looks like it might do the trick but we have a few questions: 1. Will it take traffic? no 2. Would it be a good idea to add something like composted steer manure to the soil? no 3. Can a gallon be split to create plugs? yes but we only have a few 4. Will we really be using less water than something like a dwarf tall fescue or other slow-growing, drought resistant grass mixes that could be grown from seed? (In the driest months, in areas that we don't water, the sand is moist 6-10 inches down and deeper.) Carex pansa is native there, forming little clumps separated by feet of open sand kinda like a dog with mange. Will not work as lawn, none of the natives will that we've seen, except maybe Dantonia, but it needs more water than some of the turf lawn grasses. make the lawn as small as you can to make the kids happy, put in 'trails' , native groundcovers and shrubs. Wildlife, kids and you will be happy.