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Dynamic gardening
with ornamental grasses
"If I had to choose a favorite group of plants
in my garden, it would be ornamental grasses."
Few plants are as versatile, carefree and dynamic as these grasses.
And yes, they do flower in subtle ways that grasses do - and they make wonderful companion plants for flowering perennials.
Grasses contribute a contemporary design edge that will jazz up almost any garden. They really deliver on low maintenance and high style.
Using grasses in the garden
grass in fall splendour
The biggest misconception about grasses is that they are invasive and will take over your garden. In fact, most grasses sold for home garden and landscape purposes are well-behaved clumping types that won't misbehave.
Grasses are magical because they're never static. They emerge lush green early in the season, and by summer they've filled out and begin to plume or flower.
Through the season, they move with the slightest breeze and sound wonderful when the wind rustles through them.
In the fall, you get the later warm season grasses pluming and then changes of color to wheat, gold, flaming orange or copper.
Ornamental grasses for North American gardens
Related information
Good garden-worthy grasses to grow:
Full sun grasses
Karl Foerster's feather reed grass -Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' is a choice tall ornamental grass
Switch grass (Panicum virgatum) cultivars - Beautiful, drought-tolerant North American native grasses
Grasses for shade
While most grasses thrive in sun, here are recommended grasses for shade
One of the best grasses for shade and part shade: Golden Hakone Grass
The picture (above) of my front garden shows how gorgeous grasses are throughout the fall. And the wheaten-colored foliage of ornamental grasses still looks attractive all winter.
No other plants are as easy to maintain. All you need to do is cut down and clear away the previous year's growth in late winter or early spring.
Among the popularizers of grasses are Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden, of the Baltimore-based landscape architecture firm, Oehme van Sweden, who pioneered a garden style that uses grasses en masse along with perennials.
Van Sweden's book, Gardening with Nature, is an excellent guide to this naturalistic style of gardening.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf, author of Planting the Natural Garden, was working in a similar theme; planting grasses and perennials in meadow-like swaths.
This naturalistic style is better suited to the climate and conditions of many parts of North America than the more labor-intensive English perennial border.
For more information:
How to plant and care
for ornamental grasses
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