{"id":11282,"date":"2019-05-11T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=11282"},"modified":"2019-01-21T17:40:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T22:40:49","slug":"black-mondo-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2019\/05\/11\/black-mondo-grass\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Mondo Grass"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’<\/p><\/div>\n

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Black mondo under shade tree<\/p><\/div>\n

Black mondo grass or black lilyturf (<\/em>Ophiopogon planiscapus<\/em>) is sold as a number of cultivars – \u2018Arabicus\u2019, \u2018Black Dragon\u2019, \u2018Nigrescens\u2019, or \u2018Ebony Knight\u2019. This stoloniferous grass-like perennial belongs to the lily family (Liliaceae) (USDA \u00a0hardiness zones 6-9). Its blackish-purple foliage (3\/16 inch wide leaf blades) forms lush arching clumps. For the patient gardener, know that black mondo starts off slowly. Compared to\u00a0other mondo grasses,\u00a0this black form grows shorter @ 8 -12 inches in height.<\/p>\n

Indigenous to Japan, black mondo typically grows in slow spreading clumps with arching, slowly-spreading clumps. The dark purple foliage appears almost black in most sites. In southern climates,\u00a0black mondo is\u00a0often\u00a0planted under the shade of trees, because leaf blade color will fade\u00a0under intense sunlight. White, bell-shaped flowers (up to 1\/4 inch long), with pink to lilac tints, bloom in summer. Dark purple globular berries mature in fall.<\/p>\n

Black mondo grows best in humus rich, slightly acidic, moist, well-drained, soils and in partial to full shade. Mondo prefers consistent, evenly moist soils. Although not reliably winter hardy in USDA Zone 5,\u00a0many northern gardeners have been successful growing it in a protected area. Plant foliage is evergreen in\u00a0Southern winter climates. Black foliage color is best in cool sunny locales of zones 6 and 7 and in light shady spots in zones 8-9.<\/p>\n

In the landscape black mondo makes for a great edging plant or utilize\u00a0it as a filler plant in containers. Its dark grassy foliage makes a great accent feature. As\u00a0garden edging space plants\u00a04-5 inches apart and they should fill within 3-4 years. Feed with a slow release fertilizer such as Osmocote\u2122 or Nutricote\u2122 in early spring. Rake away fallen leaves from nearby trees and shrubs in the fall so mondo grass can continue to\u00a0grow through the winter months. Irrigate a new planting\u00a0the first season and\u00a0during prolong summer dry spell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black mondo grass or black lilyturf (Ophiopogon planiscapus) is sold as a number of cultivars – \u2018Arabicus\u2019, \u2018Black Dragon\u2019, \u2018Nigrescens\u2019, or \u2018Ebony Knight\u2019. This stoloniferous grass-like perennial belongs to the lily family (Liliaceae) (USDA \u00a0hardiness zones 6-9). Its blackish-purple foliage (3\/16 inch wide leaf blades) forms lush arching clumps. For the patient gardener, know that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,1319,1281,1037,806,800,665,628,774,853,1502,551,791,843,812,601,729,1031,629,777,630,706,646,113,455,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11297,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11282\/revisions\/11297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}