Grass that’s sheer class
Ornamental types will provide you with bags of colour and style – whatever the season
ORNAMENTAL grasses work hard to earn their keep. They inject a shot of colour in spring, add texture to beds and borders in summer and provide much-needed structure in winter. In my opinion, they are at their best in early autumn when clumps of many varieties are topped with drop-deadgorgeous flowerheads.
To understand my way of thinking, make a date with a garden famed for its grasses. Inside, there will be many varieties with flower clusters (technically known as inflorescences) in numerous shapes and sizes.
These decorative appendages come in shades of white, pink, purple, copper and brown.
Over the years I’ve visited many places with displays that have blown me away. Among the best are Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire, Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire and Cambo Gardens on the Fife peninsula.
At Bressingham Gardens in Norfolk, hundreds of varieties of grasses are displayed in beds alongside a host of late-flowering perennials.
The sight of so many different grasses rubbing shoulders is not only breathtaking but gives you the opportunity to see the diversity of these plants and demonstrates their many benefits. This includes adding movement to displays as flowers sway in a breeze, and a rustling sound as you brush past the leaves.
EVEN when their flowers start to fade as autumn progresses, ornamental grasses continue to make their presence felt. The foliage of many turns shades of gold, orange and red before becoming more muted, while the seed heads of some will go on delivering sculptural interest until the end of winter.
Aside from enhancing the look of gardens, grasses are valuable for wildlife.
Hungry birds will feed on their seeds during cold snaps, while ladybirds and other insects will hunker down inside clumps of foliage until next year. Some grasses have pliable, wispy leaves that will be gathered by birds to make nests in spring.
For my money, the grasses with the most impressive flowers are miscanthus, native largely to China and Japan. Plant-breeding has given us varieties with feather-like plumes of white, pink, red and purple flowers.
These stand on stems 2ft to 12ft tall from late summer until mid-autumn above clumps of arching foliage.
Almost 200 types are available to gardeners in the UK, with many unveiled in the latter half of the 20th Century thanks to the breeding work of Ernst Pagels. At his nursery near the Dutch border, the German horticulturist created some 50 varieties of miscanthus, including ‘Flamingo’, ‘Silberfeder’ and ‘Ferner Osten’.
Pennisetums are a group of
grasses with fluffy flowerheads that emerge in late summer. There are scores of varieties, with stems that range in height from 9in to more than 5ft, topped with bottlebrush-like flowers in shades of white, pink, red, green, brown and purple.
Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Red Head’ is a compact form with 3ft stems terminating in 10in-longby-3in-wide reddish flowers, while P. orientale ‘Karley Rose’ boasts 6in-long spikes of fluffy, rose-pink flowers. P. villosum makes a mound of foliage and has 2ft-tall, arching stems that hold silvery-white flowerheads.
One of the most dramatic grasses of all is Stipa gigantea, with 8ft-tall stems of golden flowers set above 2ft-high foliage.
Another show-stopper is the brilliantly named Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’, whose bolt-upright, steely-blue foliage is topped by a 5ft haze of pinkish-green flowers.
Most grasses like a sunny spot and well-drained, moistureretentive soil.
Those that grow about 3ft to 4ft are great planted in the middle of beds and borders.
Use taller ones to punctuate plantings, and set compact varieties at the front of displays or in pots.
If you have the space, plant them in blocks or swathes for maximum impact.
Ornamental grasses combine well with many plants. Rudbeckias, heleniums and other late-flowering perennials are natural bedfellows, but they also work well with roses and are useful for softening the outline of clipped evergreens.
Use tall, robust forms of miscanthus to extend the season of interest in exotic gardens.