A display at the recent Young’s Plant Farm Annual Garden Tour caused quite a stir — not only within the industry that day, but on my Facebook page as well. I would like to take credit and say it was my beautiful photography, but to be honest, when you look at a planting and say something like "holy wow!," it is always the plants. The display was really a trifecta of award winners that just happened to come together. And the crème de la crème was Blue Mohawk rush, or Juncus.
I would like to take you down memory lane to about 15 years ago. I was coordinator for the Mississippi Medallion Award program for Mississippi State University. In our trials, we were looking at several Juncus species, but mainly Juncus inflexus, the native J. effusus and other varieties. They all did exceptionally well. We did something a little odd in that we chose "Juncus species" as the Mississippi Medallion Award winner for 2008, along with Diamond Frost euphorbia and All Around Purple gomphrena.
At that time, there was a new trend in Southern landscapes called the dry creek. This was the perfect remedy for areas where you needed to move water away from the house. All decked out with river rock and plants, the dry creek not only solved a problem, but became a real eye-catching aspect of the landscape. As you might guess, the rush, or Juncus species, became choice plants.
