Buds and Blossoms

June / July, 2010

Glorious Grass

Grass - long synonymous with vast stretches of green carpet - is a hungry, thirsty and demanding infant. We feed it with chemicals toxic to birds, pets and the air we breathe. We saturate it with precious water to encourage growth that forces us into weekly servitude with the lawnmower that, in one hour, releases hydrocarbons equal to driving a car for almost 12 hours.

By Joan Hinkemeyer

Ornamental grasses-a drought-tolerant, almost laborfree attractive solution-can create stunning landscape makeovers. Whether they are the short (eight-inch) blue-tinged Festuca Sea Urchin or the soaring majestic (five to six feet) Karl Foerster, all ornamental grasses add interesting texture, color and movement to a landscape.

With myriads of new ornamental grasses available for domestic cultivation, it is possible to create an entire showstopping landscape using these grasses with a few annual bulbs or perennials for added interest.

Unlike the monochromatic Kentucky bluegrass, ornamental grasses display dazzling color varieties that evolve throughout the growing season. Consider colors as well as growth patterns, height and texture. Do you want them to serve as a privacy barrier, to highlight other plants, camouflage eyesores or provide autumn color? For example, the golden seed heads of Karl Foerster are dazzling when contrasted with the shorter (24-inch) brilliant red-orange of Hercules miscanthus. Equally colorful are Gracillimus (five to six feet) that displays striking feathery burgundy plumes above its dark green foliage in the fall, and Silver Feather dazzles with silvery plumes that seem iridescent when backlit by late afternoon or weak winter sunlight.

Interesting shorter grasses are Cheyenne Sky, a prairie switch grass (three feet) whose stems turn wine colored in late summer and the Little Bluestem grasses (two to three feet) that also turn red in the fall. Another charmer, sometimes called eyebrow grass because of its interesting tan horizontal seed heads, is Blue Gramma, a sun lover that grows eight to 12 inches tall.

Blue grasses offer a softer cooling effect to a landscape, and the many Blue Fescue grasses fill this need. These are particularly effective providing background to bulbs or colorful groundcovers in rock gardens.

Although established grasses are undemanding plants, they require meticulous planting care. Quality compost mixed with Colorado's clay soil to improve drainage and absorption is essential. Like any young plant, grasses also require regular watering for the first three to four weeks after planting.

Joan Hinkemeyer is a garden writer who comes from a long line of greenthumbers.