Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, dwarf lilyturf is consistently rated fire resistant in the available guidance.
Six sources reach that favorable conclusion across climates from Michigan and the Mid-Atlantic to Texas and Australia. Virginia Tech rates it low on a three-point flammability scale, while the University of Tennessee includes it among Firewise plants.
The agreement is more useful because the sources describe fire resistance in different ways. Michigan State calls dwarf lilyturf wildfire-resistant and suitable for Michigan’s climate. The Sun City Texas Firewise Group judges flammability hazard by ease of prolonged burning at high temperatures and assigns dwarf lilyturf a low rating. Maryland DNR, New Jersey DEP, and West Virginia Division of Forestry include dwarf lilyturf among plants with stronger resistance to wildfire ignition. Canberra’s plant selector also marks it fire retardant.
These ratings do not make dwarf lilyturf fireproof, but they do put this groundcover firmly on the favorable side of every scale used. Virginia also describes it as drought tolerant, useful for erosion control, and better suited to warm climates. Taken together, the guidance gives homeowners a strong basis for treating dwarf lilyturf as a fire-resistant groundcover.
Form
groundcover
Rated in
Alabama; Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Georgetown, Texas; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia +3
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Alabama; Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Georgetown, Texas; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; Michigan / Great Lakes; Tennessee; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 8 scopes across 6 cited fire sources
The Alabama Forestry Commission's five-page AFC-FP-04 booklet is an Alabama publication and contains 31 printed suggested or fire-prone plant occurrences. FireApproved publishes 27 exact species or genus owners and holds one infraspecific form plus two named cultivars; this historical source scope does not establish current site suitability for a particular Alabama property.
Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.
NJ; partial normalized coverage
New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.
WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.
Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
Sun City Texas, Georgetown (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-14
The guide is authored for the Sun City Texas community in Georgetown. FireApproved publishes 142 exact owners only as community-level context. It is an archived HOA exhibit with unknown rating lineage, not a current statewide Texas source or an independent Tier 1 determination.
University of Tennessee Extension SP685 is Tennessee landscape guidance and publishes 78 represented plant owners. Most table rows are a carrier of Virginia Firescapes rather than an independent rating; Tennessee source scope does not change that lineage or establish site suitability.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in VA.
Native range
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented range 6–9.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
6–9 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Ophiopogon japonicum · exact match.
Source location: Table 1, perennial row.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Firewise Plant Guide: Groundcover [Sun City plant-table sections] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Landscaping Plants: Ground Covers; Herbaceous Annuals and Perennials [Maryland Firewise plant-form tables] (with its recommendation)
Canberra Plant Selector: filtered result page 13 [canberra-selector] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes: Suggested ground covers [Alabama Forestry Commission booklet section] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
The table rates Monkey Grass — Ophiopogon japonicus low for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
Listed as Ophiopogon japonicus (Monkeygrass, Dwarf Mondo Grass); Ophiopogon japonicus (Monkeygrass, Dwarf Mondo Grass). The source says listed species exhibit stronger resistance to ignition by wildfires. Source comments: Good for erosion control in warm climates. Drought tolerant Good erosion control, drought tolerant. Prefers warm climates
