Ornamental Grasses

If I had to choose a favorite group of plants in my garden, it would be the ornamental grasses. Few plants are as versatile, carefree and dynamic as these grasses. And yes, they do flower - 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. What more could any gardener ask?

Using grasses in the garden

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. Ornamental 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. The picture (above right) 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.

Ornamental grasses in North American gardens

I first became interested in grasses after seeing magazine articles of gardens designed by Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden, of the Baltimore-based landscape architecture firm, Oehme van Sweden. They 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 ornamental 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.
When we moved to the country from a city garden, where I had maybe five grasses, I was finally able to indulge my love of these plants and try out the new design ideas. Now ornamental grasses have become the plants that tie all the other plants in my beds together, as shown in the pictures here.

For more information:

How to plant and care for ornamental grasses

FULL SUN GRASSES:

Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster')
Try handsome switch grass (Panicum virgatum) cultivars

GRASSES FOR SHADE:
Most of the tall, dramatic grasses do best in full sun, but there are lovely grasses for shade too. Click here for information on grasses for shade.

Gardening book for novice gardeners: Clueless in the Garden Gardening book - Sound growing advice for beginner gardeners from Yvonne Cunnington.

Yvonne Cunnington is a gardener, writer, and photographer. She also leads workshops and frequently speaks on gardening. Her garden writing appears regularly in Chatelaine and Gardening Life and on Icangarden.com . She had gardener small, on a thirty-foot-wide patch, and is now gardening large on ten acres outside Hamilton in southwestern Ontario.