In the wild, artemisia is found in rocky areas on dry, well-drained soils. Artemisia can be used as an attractive border, or mowed as a groundcover. Here is a groundcover or small shrub that nearly anyone can use in a dry landscape. Yet Artemisia ludoviciana , sometimes called western mugwort or prairie sagebrush, has not been fully discovered by the landscape industry.
Artemisia grows throughout the midwestern United States, and from Canada deep into Mexico.
When you see it, you may consider it just another gray shrub, yet in a landscape it can provide an accent, thrive as a mowed groundcover or be useful as a small hedge or border. Artemisia is evergreen when mowed, and grows to 1-3 feet tall. It colonizes from creeping rootstalks and must be contained in a landscape, else it will spread in unwanted directions. It survives quite well in well-drained sand, loam, clay, caliche and limestone soils. As a singular plant, artemisia may appear lanky, yet when grouped provides a gray color that brings out yellows, reds and blues when paired with annuals or colorful perennials such as salvias.