Carol’s grasses for all gardens
With their many characteristics adding extra dimensions to the landscape, Carol explains why every garden should make room for grasses
Grasses can swish and whisper, waft and rustle. They are animated, moving as though they have a force within them
The reason plants excite me so much – and I’ll bet the same can be said for many of you – is that they are alive, growing and changing constantly. This is particularly true of herbaceous perennials and within that category is a group of plants that not only changes from season to season, but also adds something that few other plants can – movement and sound. Grasses bring extra dimensions to the garden and enhance other plants. They are the most sociable of plants and love to mingle with flowery perennials – just witness any road verge or motorway embankment.
Grasses are important in creating communities of plants that help each other establish habitats that benefit wildlife. The argument that they are of no benefit to insects because they are wind-pollinated, and produce no accessible pollen and no nectar, ignores their other assets. Grasses offer shelter and sanctuary to insects, small mammals and birds, while their seeds crucially provide food. Many butterflies and moths lay their eggs on grasses and this is where caterpillars complete the next stage of their metamorphosis.
Aesthetically, grasses can lift the garden to an elevated level, bringing fun and humour to enliven the show. The reassurance of a static garden, where everything is clipped, controlled and clumpy, can never compare with the thrill of a place that includes plants that – energised by the elements – scintillate and shimmer. The more restricted the space, the more imperative it is to liven it up. Grasses can swish and whisper, waft and rustle. They are animated, moving as though they have a force within them. There is no other group of plants that responds in such a dynamic way to light and weather, yet is so difficult to capture in an image. Perhaps film is the best way, recording not just how they dance but also the sort of music they play.
Spoilt for choice
Hard to comprehend then that some gardeners refuse to incorporate them in their gardens, except perhaps in their most ‘acceptable’ form – as a lawn. Perhaps some gardeners are unsure of how to use them or even fearful of allowing any grass into their gardens that may reach more than a centimetre tall. Author Michael Pollan argues that there is a theory that mankind, and particularly men, need the reassurance of short grass because when their ancestors were out on the pampas, predators could use the cover of long grass to approach stealthily before moving in for the kill.
“A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule,” he says. Let others argue about the benefits and shortcomings of lawns. But to deprive ourselves of the joy of growing grasses
We gardeners have access to a wealth of different grasses that we can select to suit our different conditions
ornamentally is a sad prospect. For a start, there are so many of them, and the variety of their form and stature is mind-boggling. Or maybe not. Perhaps it is to be expected from a family of plants that covers between 25 and 40 per cent of the terrestrial surface of the earth. Evolution has ensured that there are grasses that will survive in every imaginable habitat throughout the world, from desert to swamp, from mountain top to sandy shore. In turn, this means that we gardeners have access to a wealth of different grasses that we can select to suit our specific conditions. I haven’t counted them, but Knoll Gardens for instance, lists around 500 varieties.
As with any plant, the prerequisite when choosing is that the plant will enjoy the conditions it is being offered. In the garden here at Glebe Cottage, because we have varied conditions in different parts of the garden, we are able to grow a wide range of different grasses. In our shady areas, Bowles’s golden grass (Milium effusum aureum) brightens up dark corners with its soft-yellow blades. Often there are myriad self-sown seedlings looking as though someone had painted scores of yellow ticks on the dark ground. Where there are seedlings, there was once seed and before that flowers or inflorescences. When Bowles’s golden grass produces these flowers, it takes on a different persona, becoming elegant and wistful. Another favourite woodland grass is Melica uniflora ‘Albida’, an unassuming but delightful little grass, whose inflorescences in summer look like tiny raindrops adorning the stems. I met this grass for the first time many years ago at Chelsea Physic Garden. In a quiet corner it was doing its thing alongside a green and white hosta. A simple but perfect combination and a picture that will stay with me forever.
For all seasons
Thinking of grasses in different places and at different times, we all must have memories. One of my happiest was wandering around a field in Yorkshire with my friend Helen, looking for harebells and encountering a field full of wavy hair grass (Deschampsia flexuosa). This is one of those grasses that has a dreamy insubstantiality, defying definition. A meadow in full flight on a breezy day can be a sea of lilting movement.
The Brick Garden at the front of our house is home to many grasses and affords changing views throughout the year, in which process they play a significant role. There are many molinias and an off-centre crossroads is marked by four clumps of Hakonechloa macra. You are most likely to come across this elegant Japanese grass in its variegated yellow and green form, though this – the species – is much easier to use and fits in well with our planting. In spring, we await its fresh, green shoots, by midsummer its bright-green, fountain-like growth sways suggestively and by autumn it is transformed into a fusion of orange, russet and bronze. Over winter, its buff blades persist through to February when we are persuaded to cut it back in anticipation of the new spring. It is a constant reminder of the vital role that grasses play in the garden’s life.