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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1163
Little Bluestem
Schizachyrium scoparium
Little Bluestem is a compact native prairie grass that turns mahogany-red to orange in autumn and holds its shining white seed tufts through winter, feeding sparrows, juncos and prairie chickens when little else is available. Several skipper butterfly caterpillars overwinter inside tube-shaped tents built at the base of its clumps, so leaving the dead foliage standing until late winter matters more here than in most grasses. It spreads only by seed, never by root, and tolerates poor, dry, lime-heavy soil that would starve out taller grasses, though seedlings are slow to establish and need weeding through their first year.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 5–8.4
- Plant type
- Grass
- Mature height
- 2–4 ft
- Mature spread
- 18–24 in
- Plant spacing
- 1–6 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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