Consider the Ornamental Grass
And what the heck is "winter interest" anyway
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Previously on Garden Study: Container Gardening Explained, Pt. 1
When I was a nanny in the years after college, I spent a lot of time walking around the neighborhoods of Seattle with a stroller. The toddler in my charge wasn’t a huge conversationalist other than spotting and naming specific vehicles, so I decided we’d start to learn some plants. His parents had a worn copy of the Sunset Western Garden handbook (still my go-to), so I’d take note of what I saw on the walk and then go back and flip through the pages, trying to match the mental images with the sketches on the page.
This worked surprisingly well (if you’re wondering why I didn’t take a picture with my phone, this was 2003-2005!). I learned all about euphorbia and smoke trees and hens and chicks and a few dozen other Pacific Northwest garden mainstays — including THE DREADED PAMPAS GRASS. Massive, incredibly difficult to kill, razor-sharp edges, pampas grass can grow as big as small bathroom. Back then, it wasn’t labeled as invasive; as of 2013, the State of Washington has officially declared it as such.
Even back then, I understood this plant was kind of a butt, and not just because I got horrible hives all up and down my arms the first and only time I attempted to trim the one in the house I was renting. And it ruined ornamental grasses for me for a long time. Why would I want to pay for something like that that doesn’t even flower????
But then I moved to Montana. The previous owners of our little house had planted a row of tall ornamental grasses in the backyard, and they served as a perfect casual divider between the patio and the sloping grass hill beside it. They swayed in the breeze in the summer, blanched and stayed beautiful through the winter, then sprouted new, beautiful growth in the spring. And all I had to do was give them a haircut once a year. I don’t think I watered them once?
Fast forward a few years to my new garden here on Lummi. Last summer, we had to replace the forty year old deck and put in a retaining wall to shore up an eroding slope. I asked for a little garden bed to be built into the wall (sort of like a stairstep, as you’ll see below). It was done in September, and then I let it lay empty until April, wondering what I would put there….
….ORNAMENTAL GRASSES!!!! More specifically, Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses, which grow around 5 feet, tolerate a little bit of shade, and have a pretty upright habit (meaning: they grow more like the letter I, and less like the letter V. They just happen to be bending in the summer breeze here).
They’ll blanch and stay upright and golden through the winter, and then I’ll cut them back in the Spring. (When a plant is still pretty in some way even after a frost, it provides “Winter Interest,” a term that cracks me up). It doesn’t flower. It’s not fancy. But I love them, and you can find them at pretty much any nursery.
And if you’re curious what I planted them with:
Those are hellebores (also known as Lenten Roses, which I like because they’re one of the first flowers to bloom, right around Lent) and creeping jenny in between as groundcover/overhang. The creeping jenny will die back in the winter, but then resprout in the Spring and protect against weeds. Both are flourishing in the partial shade of this particular area of the garden.
Next Ornamental Grass Project: Some Eldorado Feather Calamagrostis (a variation of Karl Foerester) for border definition around the deck/where we’ve taken out a bunch of grass. Just planted these last week, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they flesh out.
So tell me about YOUR ornamental grasses — or ask any and all ornamental grass questions. What have you tried, what works really well in your garden, how do you integrate it into your landscape/other plantings, what do you love about them? Who here has actually made black mondo grass look okay? Can I plant some zebra grass along my fence even though it’s partial shade? What grasses do you use in your containers? Let’s talk (and talk and talk and talk).
(And if you haven’t visited really useful 250+ comments on last week’s Container Gardening Post, go check them out)