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Juncus 'Carman's Japan' (Carman's Sacred Japanese Rush) - This evergreen clump-forming rush grows 18-24 inches tall, with bright green, thin, narrow stems of a fine texture and an overall graceful form. Year round appear the brown flowers along the side of the stems below the tips.
Plant this rush in full sun to light shade in moist soil, a pond to a depth of 4 inches, or in areas that gets only occasional irrigation. It is hardy to below 15 degrees F - how much so we do not know. This plant seeds about in the garden but not in great quantities so it really does not seem pesky. Besides the nice foliage the brown flowers are attractive and useful in small flower arrangements.
We consider this plant a Carman Nursery introduction. The story as we have it from John Greenlee is that Ed Carman was delivering plants to a garden in Woodside, California that was being worked on by a Japanese master garden designer and stonemason, who noted that he always included this elegant rush in his gardens and gave a plant to Ed - John Greenlee purchased a plant at Carman's Nursery in the mid 1980s and subsequently named it 'Carman's Japan'. We received this plant from John Greenlee in 1987 and have grown it in our nursery ever since.
This cultivar was listed as a selection of Juncus effusus by Rick Darke in his book The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses, where he calls the plant 'Carman's Japanese'. Juncus effusus has a wide distribution and is considered native to Europe, Asia, Africa, Madagascar, North America, and South America and naturalized in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The name for the genus comes from the Latin word 'iuncus' which was the ancient word for Rushes and came from the word 'iungere' meaning "to join" and was in reference to the use of rushes for cordage and tying. Though we are not sure this plant belongs with this species. The specific epithet 'effusus' comes from modern Latin word meaning "to spread loosely' in reference to its open growth habit.
The information displayed on this page about Juncus 'Carman's Japan' is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We 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.
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