Tired of mowing, watering and dousing your lawn with chemicals? What you really need is more grass.
That’s right. Get rid of the lawn, expand your borders and add showy, glorious ornamental grasses in eye-catching colors from blue, bronze, green and chartreuse to gold, burgundy or green with creamy white stripes.
Available in a wide variety of sizes and shapes–rounded, mounding, vase-like, spiky, fountain and vertical–ornamental grasses offer endless, elegant design possibilities for any size garden, deck or balcony. They provide dramatic multiseason interest, and the slightest breeze brings a gentle rustling.
“Grasses have a natural grace that complements today’s gardens and landscapes. And they’re amazingly versatile. You name the conditions your garden has to offer–sun, shade, wet soil, dry sand–and there’s sure to be a grass that’s just perfect for that spot,” says Nancy Ondra, author of “Grasses: Versatile Partners for Uncommon Garden Design” (Storey Books, $19.95).
“Each grass has its own charm. It might be foliage color, flowers or the growth habit,” says Ondra, who pairs grasses with flowering perennials. They make excellent companions to coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, sedum, monarda, butterfly bushes, even annuals such as zinnias and celosia.
“They add a natural look that calls to mind the casual beauty of rural meadows and prairies, but within the control of a suburban or urban garden setting,” Ondra says.
Often touted as new, trendy and desirable, grasses really are among several Victorian-era plants, including coleus and cannas, that are back in vogue. A cover photo on an 1892 issue of “Gardening,” published in Chicago, featured a hefty border of variegated miscanthus, zebra grass, fountain grass and giant reed grass.
Despite their growing popularity, grasses are among the most underused plants in the Chicago area, says Greg Stack of the University of Illinois Extension. “Grasses are a hot item but people don’t know how to use them,” Stack says. “There are some that can get up to 12 feet tall, and they’re afraid of them.”
Stack’s award-winning exhibit, “Grasses with Gusto,” at this year’s Chicago Flower & Garden Show in March gave grass-wary gardeners a plethora of plants worth growing. Dainty fescues, fine-textured blue oat grass, Mexican feather grass, big and flashy miscanthus with its horizontal or vertical stripes, and three types of giant reed grass (Arundo donax), which resembles corn on steroids, were combined with more than 30 sun-loving varieties of coleus such as `Inky Fingers,’ `India Frills’ and `Religious Radish.’
Of these grasses, “most are hardy in our [USDA hardiness] zone, but there are some tender perennials. You need to know if they are cool season, warm season, running or clumping types before you choose them,” Stack says.
Cool-season grasses, so-called because they often begin growth as early as March, include blue fescue, blue oat grass, June grass (koeleria), blue lyme grass, tufted hair grass, feather reed grass and the shade-tolerant Northern sea oats.
Warm-season grasses, such as miscanthus, fountain grass, little bluestem, prairie dropseed and Japanese blood grass, begin growth after the soil warms up, usually by mid-May.
“You need to have a few of each in your garden,” says Jennifer Brennan of The Chalet Nursery & Garden Shops in Wilmette. “All of the native prairie forbs work great with ornamental grasses, as do daylilies, shrub roses and spring bulbs. The only time grasses are disappointing is in March, when it’s best to cut them down.”
Brennan looks at shape, form and growth rates when choosing grasses. She recommends the well-behaved feather reed grass (Calamagrostis `Karl Foerster’) to garden novices. “It starts growing early and produces flowers before many other grasses.”
Foliage color is another consideration. “Helictotrichon [blue oat grass] is great for blue foliage, and everyone should try Miscanthus `Sarbande’ if they have a space that’s 4 feet wide and 5 to 6 feet tall,” Brennan says.
New varieties of the native switchgrass (panicum) with names such as `Prairie Sky,’ `Cloud Nine’ and `Dallas Blues’ provide 4- to 6-foot columns of dusty or teal-blue leaves that are topped with delicate seed panicles in late summer.
Gardeners with limited space can choose from golden grasslike sedges (such as Carex `Bowles Golden’), feather reed grass and the cascading form of chartreuse-leaved hakonechloa grass. “In a smaller garden, you could use some grasses for structural elements because they have neat vertical forms,” Stack says.
Among Stack’s personal picks is fountain grass (pennisetum), including the annual red-leaved cultivar, `Rubrum.’ “Even the ones that are on the marginal side of hardiness in Chicago can be used effectively in a container garden or as an accent plant in an annual flower garden,” Stack says.
One of Ondra’s favorites is the 4-foot-tall clump-forming frost grass (spodiopogon). “It’s more in scale with a smaller yard. It holds its leaves out almost horizontally so it has a much different look, like bamboo. It likes sun but can tolerate quite a bit of shade. And it has excellent reddish fall color,” Ondra says.
Come high summer, who could pass up a display of purple coneflower by the side of love grass (eragrostis) with its dusty rose-colored seeds delicately dancing over arching leaves? Expand your horticultural horizons and your flower borders. Head out to the garden center before your neighbors discover these new-old favorites.
Tips for growing ornamental grasses
Here are some tips for growing ornamental grasses.
– Pick the right plant for the space available. Consider the plant’s mature height and spread. If you prefer lower-maintenance grasses, chose varieties that are clump-forming instead of running.
– Consider the amount of sun, shade and moisture available in your yard. For example, miscanthus grasses do best in full sun; in part shade they will become leggy and slow to flower.
– Keep aggressive, running plants such as ribbon grass or blue Lyme grass from spreading by planting them in sunken drain tiles or bottomless containers. Leave an inch or two of the pot above the ground.
– Let the dried stalks and plumes stand throughout winter. Because the leaves of larger specimens are dry and potentially flammable during cold weather, use them in beds and borders away from structures.
– Cut them down to within a few inches of the ground in late March or April. Remove the dried leaves of cool season grasses like blue oat grass and fescue by combing through the plants with your fingers.
– Highlight a collection of ornamental grasses in a special grass garden or in a bed of perennials, such as Shasta daisies, coneflowers, and sedums. They are especially beautiful planted in front of evergreens or paired with deciduous shrubs such as winterberry or rugosa roses.
– Find ornamental grasses at local nurseries, including Jayson Home & Garden, 1885 N. Clybourn Ave. (773-248-8180); The Growing Place, 25 W. Plank Rd., Naperville (630- 355-4000), and 33 W. 190 Montgomery Rd., Aurora (630-820-8088); The Chalet Nursery & Garden Shops, 3132 Lake St., Wilmette (847-256-0561); and Pesche’s Flowers, Gifts and Greenhouses, 170 S. River Rd, Des Plaines (847-299-5531).
— Nina Koziol
