PlantFiles: Creeping Lily Turf, Lilyturf, Monkey Grass
Liriope spicata

The description on this plant is incorrect. This "spreading" liriope has white flowers, the clumping varieties have purple flowers.

Excellent ground cover with great color when it blooms. even if occasional maintenance is needed to thin out the creepers, it is a hearty drought resistant plant for Texas landscapes.

I am growing this along a erosion line in my back yard, the creeping lily turf is doing wonderful. I prefer it to the clumping version just due to the fact that I need it to spread. Makes a great border. Only downside is cleaning up after trimming it back. (I have it bordering gravel and prefer not ot mow it lest I get socked with a rock.)

Variegated Liriope is much easier to manage (contain) than Monkey Grass and is more optically appealing to me. If Monkey Grass roots become entwined with the roots of other plants, it's almost impossible to eradicate. Still, I can fully appreciate the sentimental value that Monkey Grass might impart.

It is spreading in East Tennessee (Knoxville vicinity) as a low-priority invasive escape.

Every house I've ever lived in in the South, and all my relatives' houses, have had some variant of this plant in the yard. Garden books say it is overused, but I think this plant is wonderful. It makes an attractive, easily kept, evergreen border for flower beds that can be mowed under, and the spreading habit of L. spicata just gives you more plants for more borders. And there is always someone who will take your extras.

Some books say L. spicata is invasive, so if that bothers you, you can just grow any of the 9 or so varieties of L. muscari, the other Liriope, which clumps, staying where it is put. But I find L. muscari to be quite expensive in garden centers, especially when you need 50 or 60 of them for a border. I've grown both kinds, and I personally like the spreading kind better, especially the white flowered ones. Or you can grow a named variety of L. spicata called 'Silver Dragon,' with white striped leaves, which supposedly doesn't spread as rapidly.

My grandparent's house in South Georgia, where my 97 year old Aunt now lives, has had this plant in the yard for over 50 years. Every year, in early Spring, the yard man just mows the Monkey Grass borders with his lawnmower, just as the new shoots are emerging, but before they are large enough to get cut, to get rid of any unsightly brown and yellow leaves left over from the winter. The regularly mowed, runner-type, centipede grass lawn keeps the Monkey Grass in check on the lawn side, but the running offshoots do have to be dug out of the flower beds every few years. But my Aunt always has people wanting her extras--they cart them away in big clumps in cardboard boxes, and the azaleas, camellias, and cast iron plant are then safe from Monkey Grass invasion for another few years.

Here in Northcentral Florida, zone 8b, I have quite a bit of shade, so I am growing a look-alike called Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon japonicus) which looks like a shorter, darker version of Monkey Grass. This little guy is a spreader too, and I will treat it just like Monkey Grass, except it will probably never get mowed.