Foreground plants guide

[victri]

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On 12/15/2003 10:02:00 PM

first we have to understand that hairgrass is in fact a rosette plant, each growth point is a rosette capable of producing new leaves over and over again. Compare this against glosso, where the growth tip keeps moving forward with the runner. At each pair of leaves (talking about glosso here) it may produce a branch runner, which moves forward, but never a new pair of leaves.

So each point where a HG leaf grows is a rosette, just like a micro-Echinodorus. Now, it also produce runners, which moves away and creates a new rosette a short distance away. So very soon, you have many many many many rosettes, each producing leaves, over and over and over. Now you see why it is such an ideal carpet plant? If you cut the leaves all the way down to the gravel (but not cutting off the growing rosette, it will produce new leaves. If you cut your entire HG lawn completely botak, when the new leaves comes out, they rises from the gravel together, quite spectacular.

So if you plant HG in too big a clump, you're packing many rosettes into one point, forcing all the leaves (and subsequent new leaves) to be packed together. So having understood the physiology of HG, it is clear we need to spread out the individual plants to evenly seed the lawn and prevent overcrowding.


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That's so true. Didn't know anything the first time I planted it, so just plunked a whole big chunk of 20-30 stalks in a bunch. Then had all kinds of problems till I eventually took them out and separated into smaller bunches and trimmed it all down to 1cm or shorter. The new growth is amazing!

[vinz]

Anybody tried the same treatment on E. tenellus? Does it work?

[victri]

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On 12/16/2003 9:14:00 AM

Anybody tried the same treatment on E. tenellus? Does it work?
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Hey Vinz,

I did have some E. tenellus as well when I was trying to decide which grass plant I preferred. Some of it I cut really short, and it grew back very green. Only things I didn't quite like were that the runners are pretty visible and it spreads everywhere (though you can control the spread using driftwood or small rocks to block). I still sometimes find a stalk or two of it growing out of nowhere.

[Daz]

Word of cautin if you plan to plant HG. I ever did it for a 1ft x 1ft area, it is painful on the back!!!! Got to bend, see, clip and plant and repeat the process over and over again, no less then 200 times (my guess only, could be more)!!! As what Choy say, need to seperate the HG into tiny cluster. I more KS, usually only 3-6 strand per cluster when I plant.

But the result is great,but it is only after 3 months or so then the HG grow to cover the entire area.

As for E. tenellus, tried it out once and really hate it. Yes it does look great and green and very compact, but the runners are another story altogether. They grow so fast that one month of necglect, I have to clear the stray E. tenellus out many areas. They can 'run' on top and WAY below the gravel.

No more E. tenellus for me.

[hwchoy]

following from what I said about HG being a rosette plant, it is only the first time that it will take couple of months to create a lawn, because it will require the HG to send runners out all over and lay down the growth points (rosettes). If subsequently you do trimming, even all the way to botak, it will only take a week to grow back (mine was like 3 days) because EVERY rosette in the substrate will put out a new leaf, rather than having the runners go all over again. This is completely in constrast to plants like glosso.

[vinz]

E. tenellus is slow compared to Sagittaria subulata. That plant grows much faster. When it gets too dense or shaded, it starts to grow tall leaves... up to 2 feet tall.

[CT]

sorry to ask this, but how do trim hairglass? if it go tall can we just cut of the top part of it?

[hwchoy]

IMHE, cut it down to the roots around every 3 months. just like mowing lawn, cut all the leaves but leave the growing tuft (rosette) which should be in the gravel. the reason for doing this is remove the old leaves completely to prevent future rotting and crowding (which will harbour algae and traps dirt).

Once you trim everything, in a week you will have a new field of HG leaves springing up from the plants which is inside the gravel.