Planting Beachgrass | Church's Beachgrass and Nursery

Beachgrass

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What to Do: Bareroot Beachgrass plants’ root systems need to be kept moist until they are planted. When on the jobsite, cover the roots with wet hay, burlap or wet mulch until they are planted. This ensures freshness from the storage area to the planting area.

We treat our plants with the utmost care while we pack your order. We ship most of our plants in our own enclosed trucks and trailers. When we need to ship smaller orders via UPS, we box up the plants, properly sealing them to keep moisture around the roots.

Once UPS has delivered your order, open the box and unseal your plants giving them some air and mist the roots with water and either plant right away or store properly for a short time. See “Beachgrass storing”

Planting - Church's Beachgrass and Nursery

Planting Beachgrass - Church's Beachgrass and Nursery

WHAT to USE: Planting Beachgrass can be accomplished in many different ways. We have seen our customers use many types of tools in our 50 plus years of growing Beachgrass. We recommend a short d-handled shovel with a long narrow spade on the end. These shovels can be found at your local garden center or you can purchase one from us simply by calling our sales dept. and they can ship it to you.

AMOUNT: A Beachgrass “plant” is defined as having 2 stems or culms. We ship our Beachgrass in bundles of 100 plants each. You will have 200 stems/culms in that bundle, that is considered 100 plants.

Fig. 1 Spacing of the Beachgrass Plants is Very Important.
beachgrass planting grid

SPACING: We recommend spacing your Beachgrass 12” apart in rows and space those rows 12” apart from each other. (See Fig. 1) Staggering the rows will help in collecting more sand and thus building the dune quicker. This spacing would give you 1 plant for every 1 square foot of dune. (See diagram 1) Sometimes Beachgrass is planted 18” apart, which uses less plants, however it will take longer to establish the dune system.

DEPTH: We recommend that you plant Beachgrass 6”-8” deep. Our plants are approximately 16” long so when you plant them half way down the stem they are planted correctly.

HOW: We recommend a two person team when planting Beachgrass. One person uses the shovel and places their foot on the step to drive it deep into the sand. They then push the handle forward and pull it backwards thus creating a “V” in the sand, while keeping the shovel in the hole to hold the sand in place, the other person on the team now places two stems/culms into the hole on the backside of the shovel. The first person who has the shovel now pulls the shovel from the hole and firmly packs the loose sand around the plant with their feet.

WHEN: We recommend that bare root Beachgrass is only planted from Oct.1 through March 31. Our northern customers can plant as late as April 15. The temperatures and rainfall amounts before or after these dates make it too dry and warm to support a bare root plant. If you need to plant outside of these dates, we recommend using our Beachgrass plugs. The Beachgrass plugs have an extensive root system in place from growing for a season in a plastic plug tray. These plugs can be planted later in the season. See our Beachgrass Plugs page.

AFTER PLANTING: We recommend that when you have finished planting your Beachgrass, that an application of fertilizer be applied over the top of the planted area. We recommend Church’s Beachgrass Food. This is a blend of synthetic fertilizers using a 19-0-8 formula. Apply Church’s Beachgrass Food at the rate of 20 lbs. per 2000 square feet of dune. We also have an organic fertilizer as well. Church’s Organic Plant Food using a 5-5-5 formula is another way of getting essential nutrients to your newly planted Beachgrass. Apply Church’s Organic Plant Food at the rate of 25lbs. per 1000 square feet of dune. We recommend that when you apply your fertilizer you use an over-the –shoulder, crank type spreader and simply walk between the plants on your dune. This type of spreader gives a good uniform spread pattern.

Fertilizing should also be done periodically during the growing season to maximize the growth of that Beachgrass.