In the Tall Grasses

While gardeners talk a lot about structure in garden planning, it's usually about physical structures such as walls, fences, pergolas and shrubs. Another beautiful structural element, though, is ornamental grasses. There are hundreds of varieties of ornamental grasses to be found and it's easy to find ones suitable for our northern New England climate, but it is beneficial to do a little research about what type of grass you really want before visiting your local nursery. Here's a few I particularly favor and for different reasons: Miscanthus Sinensis, also known as Chinese silver grass, is a longtime favorite of mine. It grows to six feet tall in elegant clumps of very thin silver-green arching blades that sway beautifully in the breeze. Noted as hardy to zone five, it does just fine here in Dublin which can lean into the chillier zone four. Not soil-fussy at all and fairly drought resistant once established, it's a workhorse in the garden towards the back or as accents mid-garden. I've got three big clumps that look dreamy surrounding a small garden pond. Tasseling in early fall, Miscanthus provides great winter interest and seeds for birds. Hakone Grass, Hakonechloa macra, is also known as Japanese forest grass. It's a bright-green, low-growing beauty that works best planted en masse in shade or semi-shade. At one to two feet tall, the arching blades all tend to point the same way and their lightness means that the smallest breeze will create a rippling effect that evokes a flowing stream. If you've got a spot where you can plant at least five in a meandering sequence, you'll love the effect. Hardy to zone five, Japanese forest grass likes moist, rich soil for best performance. It tends to be pricey so shop around so you can buy multiple! Helictotrichon sempervirens, (blue oat grass) has the spiky clumping nature of fescues but is bigger. Its silver-blue color is stunning and provides a terrific contrast to all the green in the garden. Hardy to zone four, blue oat grass is well behaved and grows two to five feet tall in clumps about two feet in diameter. Very graceful and quiet in its visual nature, this Mediterranean native is still big enough to be a punctuation point. Planted throughout a landscape it provides desired continuity. Switchgrass, also called Panicum virgatum, is a native group of grasses and the varieties are seemingly endless. Another clumping grass, some varieties can grow up to 10 feet tall. Though the tag is long gone, I believe I've got a robust clump of switchgrass that indeed towers over me. As well as its ornamental nature, switchgrass is often used in conservation projects due to its deep roots and spreading nature — a plus for newly disturbed land that might tend to wash out. All varieties are good seed producers and very beneficial to wild birds throughout the winter. It can creep, though, so a strong hand is required to control it as well as to cut it back in the spring. Fountain grass, (Pennisetum alopecuroides), is another large genus of ornamental grasses and probably the most familiar variety and with good reason. They all tend to form graceful clumps of swaying grass accentuated by showy, feather-like plumes of seed heads that are some of the earlier to appear. The color diversity of different varieties is dizzying and there's two varieties I want to try. "Red Head" is a lovely variety with ribbon-like green blades that reach up to four feet tall and come late summer, dark reddish-maroon bottle brush-shaped seed heads appear. The contrast with the green grass is stunning. Pennisetum "Majestic" is a vivid, near-black grass with consistent deep purple color from stem base through seed head that is another high contrast plant for the garden and landscape. Growing up to six feet tall, Google says it's hardy to zone six so often it's treated as an annual. Absolutely gorgeous. Ornamental grasses are also an economical landscape investment in that every three or four years, they can easily be divided into quarters to create four new plants to spread throughout your yard or share with a friend. If I had to find one drawback to ornamental grass is that the dried blades occasionally break off during the winter and scatter about, creating just a little extra work come springtime. They mostly stay intact, though, and can be cut back in handfuls. Whatever varieties you might choose, grasses are graceful beauties that provide whispering movement throughout the growing season and even through wintertime.