It will tolerate a wide variety of conditions from a wet seep in full sun to a relatively dry light shade in well drained, clay, alkaline or serpentine soils. It is best in full sun or partial shade (color is better in part sun in hot locations) with regular to infrequent irrigation. Cold hardy to ~0° F and useful in USDA Zones 6 and above and is resistant to browsing by deer. It and was long thought that this riparian species was best in moist to regularly irrigated conditions but in the UC Davis Landscape Irrigation Trials it was determined that this plant performed well both when it was irrigated regularly and when it only received a couple irrigation treatments throughout the entire dry periods of the year. The ability of this plant to handle both wet inundation and drought makes it a great candidate for vegetated drainage swales.

San Diego Sedge is found growing naturally in Creekbanks, near seeps and in canyon bottoms below 4,000 ft from the central California coast just north of the Monterey and San Luis Obispo County line south to Baja California and inland and most common in the San Diego western Peninsular Ranges. The name for the genus is a Latin word describing the sedges and the specific epithet from the Latin word 'spissus' means "crowded" or "dense" in reference to the plants dense tightly clustered form.

We grew this plant from 1994 until 2006 and only discontinued growing this big native sedge it because of the lack of sales as we thought it a great plant! 

Information displayed on this page about Carex spissa is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.