Grass Tree

Xanthorrhoea, the slow, sculptural Australian native that anchors a courtyard like nothing else can.

Xanthorrhoea · Also known as Xanthorrhoea, Yakka, Yacca

Nothing else looks like a grass tree. A dense fountain of fine, grassy foliage sits on top of a slow-formed charcoal trunk, and every few years it throws up a tall flower spike like a spear. It reads as pure sculpture, which is exactly why we reach for it when a garden needs one bold, quiet feature rather than a crowd of plants.

It is an unmistakably Australian plant with a very long memory: a grass tree grows so slowly that a trunked specimen may be many decades old. That slowness is the whole point of it as a feature, and also the reason it is worth choosing the right spot once and leaving it there.

In a Brisbane garden

The one thing a grass tree will not forgive in Brisbane is wet feet. It evolved on lean, fast-draining ground, so it wants a raised bed, a slope or a gritty, open soil, and it will slowly rot in a heavy clay hollow that stays soggy after summer storms. Get the drainage right and it is one of the toughest, lowest-input feature plants you can own here.

Transplant it with care. Established, trunked specimens are expensive and can decline if their roots are badly disturbed, so buy nursery-grown or ethically salvaged stock (grass trees are protected, and digging them from the bush is illegal), keep the rootball intact, and be patient while it settles. Once it has, it asks for almost nothing.

How we design with it

A grass tree is a one-plant statement, so we give it room and let it be the star, exactly the thinking behind our note on the small courtyard garden, where one sculptural feature beats a scatter of pots. It suits a hot, sunny spot and sits beautifully against the clean lines of a modern garden or the loose palette of a native garden.

Plant it where its silhouette reads against a plain wall or the sky, underplant lightly with low grasses or gravel so nothing competes with its form, and light it at night to throw that fountain of foliage into relief. It is a slow plant for patient gardeners, and it rewards them for years.

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