Lirope muscari

Liriope muscari comes in a choice of varieties, but are all small (average height 30cm) hardy clumping plants from East Asia. Their specialty for me is they handle sun or shade. Ideal (and rare) when you want to use the same plant in a border which has both sun & shade as in this photo. Their purple flowers make a great show in late summer/autumn, and are followed by black berries. They don’t look bad when flower stalks have died so don’t need dead heading. There is also a white flowering variety L. muscari ‘Munroe white’ available in NZ.

L. spicata is another species which looks much the same as L. muscari, but spreads more rapidly and is ideally used as a groundcover. Just be aware before you plant, that it can be invasive (will keep spreading), so may need to be controlled. Otherwise use L. muscari which does not spread far.

They are all super hardy & don’t need watering once established, so ideal in areas with little or bad soil eg under trees, in narrow strips next to concrete haunching. The only set back is, snails love them and can leave the leaves looking tattered. We normally prune them back hard once we see new growth starting in spring. They grow back quickly with fresh new leaves.