Chives vs Sweetgrass

Chives are small bulbous perennials commonly used as herbs in cooking for a mild onion like flavour. Chives also add ornamental benefits to your yard with their tubular grass-like leaves and clusters of pale purple flowers. The flower heads can also be used as a garnish or in oils.

It is best to harvest Chives from the base to maintain the attractive clumps. If the flowers are not dead-headed, it will self-seed. Planting our overwintered chives will give you a head start in your vegetable garden.

Sweetgrass is a cool-season perennial grass best known for its sweet, vanilla-like fragrance. The scent comes from coumarin in the leaves, which is pleasant to humans but has a bitter taste that makes the plant less appealing to deer and other herbivores. As a cool-season grass, Sweetgrass grows most vigorously in spring and fall, slowing or even going dormant during the heat of summer.

It spreads quickly through creeping rhizomes and can be difficult to remove once established, so it is best planted in areas where its spread will not cause problems. Due to its deep, vigorous root system and preference for moist soils, Sweetgrass is especially useful for erosion control, soil stabilization, riparian plantings, and naturalization projects.

Note: Sweetgrass was formerly classified under the scientific name Hierochloe odorata and its subspecies. The subspecies found in Canada are currently considered two distinct species: Anthoxanthum hirtum, which is native across Canada, and Anthoxanthum nitens, which is native to Eastern Canada. Because these two species are alike and share many overlapping common names, they are often considered as only one species.

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