Lomandra Baby Breeze ['LM600'] PP28,260 (Evergreen Baby Mat Rush) - A compact, fine leafed evergreen grass-like plant that grows to 16 to 18 inches tall by 18 inches wide. This cultivar has very narrow dark green leaves and dark purple-brown basal shoots – this is the smallest Lomandra we currently grow! In spring appear the small lightly fragrant yellow male flowers.
Plant in full sun to light shade and give regular to only occasional or infrequent irrigation. This cultivar is noted to be able to handle light or heavy soils and both moist and dry conditions. It is frost tolerant and should prove as cold hardy as other such Lomandra, tolerating temperatures down to around 15° F. This has proven to be a great plant for low mass planting, a border plant or elsewhere where a small but durable grass-like plant is wanted - we particularly like to use it in our large cement pots as the groundcover under larger specimen plants. It will mature out to be less than half the height of the very popular Lomandra longifolia Breeze.
In Australia they have also noted that this plant typically has deep green colored foliage and recommend liming the soil should the desire be to have it a more lime green color. Our soils and irrigation water are typically more alkaline than those in Australia and, while this plant has remained a deep green color in our nursery soils, it may lighten up once planted out. A recommendation here might be the reverse of that down under with an application of soil sulfur perhaps being required for those who wish to darken up the foliage color – only time will tell!
Baby Breeze is seedling selection resulting from open-pollination in 2010 of a selected fine-leafed female and male Lomandra longifolia and L. fluviatilis cultivars, including L. Breeze ['LM300'] that was carried out by Todd Layt at his plant breeding facility in Clarendon, New South Wales, Australia. The resulting seed was used to grow plants from which this plant was selected from in 2011 for its very fine foliage. This plants cultivar name is 'LM600' but its marketing name in Australia is Evergreen Baby and it was under this name that we first received this plant to trial in 2016. Lomandra 'LM600' received US Plant patent PP28,260 in August 2017 and is marketed in the US through Dig Plant Company in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. For marketing in the US it was determined that the name Baby Breeze was more meaningful and less confusing (since all Lomandra are evergreen). We were licensed to produce Baby Breeze in 2018 and exclusively released it for sale in 2020.
The name Lomandra comes from the Greek words 'loma' meaning "margin" and 'andros' meaning "male" and is in reference to a circular margin on the anthers. This hybrid involves plants of Lomandra longifolia and L. fluviatilis with the former epithet meaning "long leaves" meaning "of a river". The genus Lomandra has long been placed with the Australian Grass Trees in the Xanthorrhoaceae or related Dasypogonaceae and more in its own family, the Lomandraceae, or combined with the Cordyline into the Laxmanniaceae, but current treatment is to put it in the subfamily Lomandroideae in the Asparagaceae.
This information about Lomandra Baby Breeze ['LM600'] PP28,260 displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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