Sweet Flag, also known as Acorus calamus, is a perennial plant that is known for its sweetly fragrant foliage and its tolerance for wet conditions.
This plant typically grows to a height of 2-3 feet with a similar spread. It prefers full sun to part shade and thrives best in wet, boggy soils, making it a great choice for water gardens, pond edges, or other areas of the landscape that stay consistently moist.
The leaves of Sweet Flag are sword-shaped, bright green, and have a sweet, spicy fragrance when crushed. In the summer, it produces inconspicuous, greenish-yellow flowers on a spadix, similar to many other water-loving plants.
Type: |
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Origins: |
Northeast and Upper Midwest N. America |
Height: |
2' - 3' |
Spread: |
0.5' - 1' |
Spacing: |
0.5' |
USDA Hardiness Zone: |
3 - 6 |
Culture: |
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Bloom Color: |
Green |
Season of Interest: |
MAINTENANCE NEEDS: Low maintenance. Keep soil moist.
LANDSCAPE USES: Accents or Group Plantings, Borders, Naturalized Areas, Wildlife Gardens Native Gardens, Pond Edges, Water Gardens, and Containers
COMPANION PLANTS: Swamp Milkweed, Cherokee Sedge, Northern Blue Flag Iris
IMAGES: Jack Greenlee, U.S. Forest Service, Acorus americanus USFS-1, (2) Photo by Tom Potterfield, Acorus americanus (sweetflag), (3) Ryan Hodnett, Sweetflag (Acorus americanus) - Kitchener, Ontario 2018-08-17, CC BY-SA 4.0
*As plants have ranges in appearance they may not appear as the images shown