A selection of ornamental grasses (Photo by Jane Gates)
Related Articles
You can get year round color from planting ornamental foliage in your garden. Interesting shapes, textures and colors from leaves, bark and branch formations can add décor that remains the backbone of a good garden design as flowers and berries come and go with passing seasons. Some do go dormant in the winter, but their decorative foliage lasts much longer than most flowers. Here is a list of some of the more colorful ornamental grasses and grass-like plants that you can use for foliage.
Calamagrostis – Feather Reed Grass has a number of cultivars with white striping on the leaves
Carex - these grasses come in a wide range of colorful foliage and interesting leaf textures. Most are small to medium heights.
Cortaderia is the well-known large grass with huge ornamental plumes known as 'Pampas Grass'. Plant only sterile varieties in areas where it has become a serious invasive pest.
Cordyline – is not a true grass since this can grow like a sparsely branched tree. Many varieties have purple, yellow, burgundy and even hot pink leaves
Festuca – comes in grays, greens and blues in this generally smaller-growing grass
Helictrichon – the Blue Rye grass has handsome powder blue leaves
Hakonechloa -- Japanese Forest Grass can take shade and forms mounds of draping foliage often streaked with yellow
Miscanthus – is a large group of grasses most of which go dormant in the winter but offer wonderfully patterned and painted foliage with whites, greens and yellows.
Mulenbergia capilaris – a nice textural, smaller grass that blooms with delicate clouds of pink in the autumn. (This is the pink-flowering grass in the picture above.)
Pennisetum ‘Moudry’ – Black fountain grass with green foliage and black fuzzy inflorescences (flowers)
Pennisetum rubrum – Red fountain grass is a dark burgundy color that contrasts wonderfully with other plants in the garden
Phalaris – Ribbon Grass ‘Strawberries and Cream’ is a low, somewhat invasive grass that is mostly white with green streaks and new growth that is flushed bright pink
Panicum virtagum -- Red Switch Grass turns bright orange/brown in the fall
Phormium – is not a true grass but very decorative with a fantastic range of color striping
This is just a small selection of colorful and textural ornamental grasses you can use in your garden. Choose the varieties that will do best in your climate and soil and plant them where their vertical shapes and lasting color will have the best impact on the design of your garden.
Comments