A Prairie Garden Journal    by Dick Meyer

 

Ornamental Grasses


Hardy Pampas Grass

Switch Grass




      

 

 

 

 

Ornamental grasses continue to be one of the most popular plants in Wyobraska gardens—and for good reason, make that reasons.   The strongly vertical lines of grasses are unlike any other garden plant, which makes them stand out in almost any landscape or garden scene.  Grasses have a longer period of seasonal visual interest compared to almost any other garden plant—their interest lasting into or through our long winters.  They bring a look of regional authenticity into our garden—after all, grasses are the dominant plant in our indigenous Wyobraska landscape.  And if that’s not enough reasons, they tend to be easy to grow, low-maintenance plants.

            As Wyobraska homeowners and gardeners use more grasses in their home landscapes and gardens we are seeing just how versatile these plants can be.   Grasses make great ornamental “filler” plants in perennial beds and borders.  Because they don’t have colorful flowers, they don’t compete in the summertime with the colorful succession of blooming perennials that dominate the summertime gardens and landscapes, but their subtly interesting vertical foliage provides excellent background and visual softening for the perennial bed.  Then as summertime wanes, fading the vibrantly colored flowers, the grasses send up their seed stalks to tower over the flowers and just as they finally reach their full height by late summer, they begin to take on a range of fall colors from straw yellow to burnt orange to rich maroon red. 

            But ornamental grasses shouldn’t be confined to just perennial borders and beds.  Grasses can also be striking plants when planted alongside and among traditional tree and shrub landscape groupings.  They are particularly good companion plants to summer flowering shrubs like shrub roses, butterfly bush, blue mist spirea, and hibiscus.              

 

  

Cool season grasses like feather reed grass create a scene with year-around interest when planted alongside shrubs with good spring flowering and fall foliage color—shrubs like serviceberry, black chokeberry, and viburnums.  Warms season bunch grasses like big and little bluestem are excellent in combinations with large evergreen shrubs and small evergreen trees.  The orange-red fall and winter color of these grasses is even more striking against the backdrop of wintergreen foliage of evergreen trees and shrubs.

Grasses are commonly divided into one of two groups—cool season or warm season.  As the names imply, cool season grasses prefer to grow in cool weather, and warm season grasses prefer the hot summer growing period.   Most ornamental grasses are warm season grasses—hardy pampas grass, miscanthus, big and little bluestem, switch grass, and fountain grasses all fall into this category.  They start growing in mid to late May or even early June, and reach their full seasonal potential by late August to early September.  Their rapid growth through the summer creates a visually dynamic summertime garden.   The popular feather reed grass is a cool season grass.  It begins to grow by mid March, and by early May when the warm season grasses are beginning to green up, it is already 12 inches tall.  Feather reed grass has fully formed seed heads by mid-July and by early August the seed heads have already turned a golden yellow as they stand above the still bright green foliage below.  

            If you’ve been thinking about adding some ornamental grasses to your landscape, here’s some further classifications that may be helpful as you decide which grass (or grasses) is right for your garden or landscape.
 

 

Feather Reed Grass

 

Previous Articles

April 27, 2006
Crazy Clematis

 

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For Summer interest

  • Feather Reed Grass

  • Fountain Grass

  • Blue Fescue

  • Blue Avenna Grass

  • Sideoats Gramma

  • Prairie Dropseed

Grasses For Fall and Winter Interest

  • Miscanthus

  • Hardy Pampas Grass

  • Little Blue Stem

  • Big Blue Stem

Short grasses  (less than 24 inches tall)

  • Blue Fescue

  • Blue Avenna

  • Sidoats Gramma

  • Prairie Dropseed

  • Dwarf Fountain Grass
     

 

  


Medium Grasses  (2 to 5 feet tall)

  • Feather Reed Grass

  • Little Blue Stem

  • Most Miscanthus varieties

  • Fountain Grass

  • Switch Grass (some slightly taller)

  • Big Blue Stem (5-8')

Tall Grass

  • Hardy Pampas Grass

Prefer Moist Soil

  • Miscanthus
    Fountain Grass

  • Feather Reed Grass

  • Switch Grass

Drought Tolerant (Xeriscape plants)

  • Little Blue Stem
    Big Blue Stem

  • Blue Fescue
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