Some of the plants that are really working in our garden through this windy weather are the ornamental grasses! Our exposed front garden which is usually hot and dry through the summer months now has quite a collection and I love the movement that they bring on windy days as well as the noise when a slight breeze runs through them in calmer weather.
The Stipa gigantea (Golden Oats) has been in flower for months; the spikes starting as satiny, dark brown, drooping heads unfurling from the spear like flower stems in June. The last of these has now bleached out to pale gold and the wind has stripped away the awns so that we are left with bare stems which still refuse to lie down in the gales! Through the winter this grass is an arching mound of narrow, evergreen leaves that the cat likes to hide under on sunny winter days!
Molinia ‘Skyracer’ lives up to its name as usual and has made a huge show of beady, brown flowers on upright stems, furnished with a base of arching, deep green leaves. This grass really comes into its own each autumn when it takes on yellow and golden colours before the whole plant collapses, it seems overnight’, to a pile of straw that can be removed to the compost heap.
My Miscanthus ‘Gracillimus’ should color up to orange and red in autumn, but the plants that we have are in a shady part of the garden and I think they need more sun to do well. I will try to find a better place for them and move them as they begin to die back for the winter. I love Miscanthus for their feather duster plumes at the end of the summer and early winter as well as for the autumn colours on the green leaved varieties and bold contrasts on the variegated ones. They seem to be happy in most soils and even in coastal gardens, but some of the taller types can flop annoyingly unless they are tied up or given a lot more room than our crowded garden allows!
A recent visit to our local garden center unveiled a good range of lower growing grasses that will love the open position of the gravel garden and make a spiky statement by parts of the path. Although not long lived, hating winter wet, Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’ is an evergreen stunner with metallic blue, needle like leaves and dainty flower heads in summer. I have planted a drift of five of these and they contrast well with the pale coloured gravel. Another that took my eye was Pennisetum Hameln with stiff growth of narrow, olive green leaves and fluffy flower spikes at this time of the year. I will plant some with a drift of blue Agapanthus that are doing well this year or perhaps under some Verbena bonariensis or Achillea – the possibilities with grasses are endless as they seem to work well with most flowering plants! Sometimes I wish I had a larger garden to try all these combinations out!
