Are you looking for native Australian plants that provide year-round interest with interesting foliage colours?
Alternatives for King Alfred® Dianella
Are you looking for King Alfed® Dianella, but can’t find it anywhere?
Perhaps you’re looking for a few alternatives that are easier to source while providing similar benefits? If so, you’ve come to the right place; this article will explain the status of the high-performing variety and provide alternatives.
King Alfed® Dianella has been the strongest erosion-controlling plant we’ve ever tested, strengthening soil 752% compared with bare soil. It’s a relatively tall native flax at 70cm tall, with thick, bushy foliage that gets so dense that it needs to be cut to the base every year or two to prevent it choking itself out.
One use for the plant has been to capture heavy metals from the soil into the leaves, and remove them from site as green waste. This is an incredibly useful function, but it’s not one that many specifiers have front of mind on all projects.
Unfortunately, the Australian landscape market never quite realised just how amazing this plant is, because it never sold as well as we’d hoped. Perhaps that’s because specifiers were wary of specifying a strappy that needs to be cut hard so often.
As a plant breeder, one of the hardest things we need to do is cut poorly performing varieties out of our catalogue so that we can focus on plants that the industry really wants to use. King Alfed® Dianella is one of the unfortunate plants to hit the chopping block.
Moving forward, we’ve compiled a list of the best alternative strappy plants and grasses that we’ve tested for erosion control. You can learn about our testing methods here.
We also look forward to testing some of our recently released plants which we know will perform well but haven’t had the chance to prove themselves scientifically yet.
Erosion Control Study Findings
| Plant | % Increase vs bare soil | Shear strength kPa |
| Fine Divine™ Dietes | 326% | 38.5 |
| Grand Star™ Dietes | 228% | 26.9 |
| Shara™ Lomandra | 225% | 26.2 |
| Evergreen Baby™ Lomandra | 210% | 24.8 |
| Pacific Sky™ Lomandra | 200% | 23.6 |
| Flat Mat™ Trachelospermum | 140% | 16.5 |
| Plant | % Increase vs bare soil | Shear strength kPa |
| King Alfred® Dianella | 752% | 70 |
| Nafray® Pennisetum | 475% | 50.3 |
| Lucia™ Dianella | 433.75% | 49.3 |
| Lomandra ‘Katrinus Deluxe‘ PBR | 366% | 39.6 |
| Nyalla® Lomandra | 328% | 36.1 |
| Breeze® Dianella | 297% | 33.2 |
| Katie Belles™ Lomandra | 285% | 32.3 |
| Agapanthus | 283% | 32 |
| Tasred® Dianella | 250% | 29.6 |
| Tanika® Lomandra | 250% | 29.5 |
| Katrinus Lomandra | 216% | 26.9 |
| Little Jess™ Dianella | 181% | 24.3 |
| Carex appressa | 176% | 23.8 |
| Little Rev™ Dianella | 161% | 22.8 |
| Tropic Cascade™ Lomandra | 159% | 18.6 |
Daniel’s Wrap
It seems the industry has spoken. You and I both know that King Alfed® Dianella is an incredible plant and well worth the industry adopting, but screaming about this until our faces are blue won’t make the plant commercially viable.
Instead, we’re all just going to need to move on to other plants. Hopefully the list above makes it easier for you to move forward.
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