Sallow Sedge grows best in gardens next to water features such as ponds or streams, or in wetland areas, wet meadows and ditches. Its Latin name refers to the “lurid” lime green of its seedhead, whose shape is responsible for another of its names, bottlebrush sedge; sallow also means yellowish.

Some sites suggest sedges like Sallow Sedge for rain gardens. However, rain gardens are designed to drain very quickly, usually within 48 hours, and in between rains they can get quite dry. Thus they need plants that do well in both sudden wet and periods of dryness. Sallow sedge may find the dry spells too dry. We would love to hear about your experiments with different sedges in rain gardens.

Like other wetland sedges, Sallow Sedge feeds and houses the Sedge Wren, a small bird who spends summers in Alberta to Northwestern Ontario, and less commonly in the rest of Ontario and into Quebec. Their numbers are declining so plant wetland sedges!

Wetland sedge seeds also feed many waterfowl and songbirds, including: Trumpeter Swan, Wood Duck, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Northern Shoveler, Green-winged Tea, Blue-winged Teal, Mallard, Black Duck, Lesser Scaup, Redhead, Ring-necked Duck, American Coot, Yellow Rail, Sora, Virginia Rail, Wilson Snipe, White-rumped Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher, and Swamp Sparrow.

Sallow sedge is the host plant for many species of skipper butterflies and moths, including Duke’s Skipper, Dun Skipper, Broad-winged skipper, appalachian brown butterfly, eyed brown butterfly, American Ear Moth, and many others. It is used by many insects including the striped sedge grasshopper, Otto’s sedge grasshopper, and other insects which in turn feed birds and mammals.