Enjoy Ornamental Grasses All Year

Grasses
These are some of the most loyal and least demanding foliage plants that thrive in the wild with little care or maintenance. These are highly adaptive, non-complaining creatures, found happily growing even in the worst possible soil type. These have varying disposition with a range of color, form and water requirements. These fascinating plants give one a lot of choice and scope for experimentation. In the garden these can be employed as ground covers either to give a soft appeal to a hard landscape or for resisting erosion of topsoil. To break the monotony they can be contrasted with plants that have bold outlines.

Some grass varieties are known as ‘ Ornamental grasses’ for their fantastic appearance. These are usually of various sizes, shapes and colors. Their vibrancy can ideally be compared with the rush of colors in an artist’ s palette!

Blue Oat Grass - 'Helictotrichon sempervirens'

This ornamental grass is a striking steel-blue evergreen foliage plant. This is a clump-forming grass species with arching stems that tapers to form stiff flower spikes dyed in purple but turns straw colored in summers. It’ s best to place these perennial plants in a position that allows full light. Humus rich alkaline soil is the best for their growth.

Bowles' Golden Sedge - 'Carex elata Aurea'

This is an elegant ornamental grass species that can really help to lighten up an otherwise dull habitat with their rich yellow leaves, stripped in green. The leaves narrow and follow an arching pattern. This grass species prospers in moist soil and even in shallow standing water. Though this grass prefers sunlight too much of it might bleach it’ s leaves, while too less of sunlight might it stunted.

Chinese Silver Grass - 'Miscanthus sinensis Malepartus'

This extremely imposing genre of ornamental grass has a fluffy flower head that wears different shades in different seasons. These flower heads sit on the tip of the arching mild green leaves. In late summer, these might appear brownish-gold while in the autumn it flaunts a bright red. It enjoys a sunny site with well-drained topsoil.

Feather Reed Grass - 'Calamagrostis x acutiflora Karl Foerster'

This strongly upright ornamental grass species are one of the best, for large sized gardens. In summers their flower heads are pink with a brownish tinge and fades to superb wheat color in the other seasons. It should be pampered with humus-rich, moist soil and a position in the shade. In extreme sun, its stem might get scorched and begin to collapse.

Golden Oats - 'Stipa gigantea'

This splendid evergreen grass is best suited to form a lasting sunny border to the garden.
This clump forming ornamental grass has arching stems with radiant oat-like flower heads gracefully positioned at the tip. Their flower clusters called spikelets, turn to a bright golden when ripe .The leaves are grayish-green and extremely slender. They flourish best when positioned in full sun and planted in a rich, well-drained soil.

Hakonechloa - 'Hakonechloa macra'

This ornamental grass is usually small and forms clumps of arching stems and narrow leaves.
This deciduous grass looks marvelous with a little ‘ mix and match’ . This looks great when planted when mingled with hardy plants or even when blended with other ornamental grasses. In late summers or autumn it gives birth to drowsy, dull green flower spikes.


Imperata - 'Imperata cylindrica Red Baron'

This impressive grass species can be grown either in the ground to form a border while contrasting it with golden or blue foliage plants or can be planted in large containers. This grows gradually taking months to spread itself in the locale. Another of those clump forming grass, it has mild green leaves that turn blood red in the summers and fluffy silvery-white flower spikes that adorn the tips of the stems.

Pheasant's Tail Grass - 'Stipa Arundinacea'

This evergreen grass species has brownish-green leaves that turn to a bright shade of rich orange bordering on red. It’ s a marvelous creeping grass that helps to add vitality to an otherwise dull winter garden. When the flower heads become faded it is best to remove them otherwise they might germinate on their own from the fallen seeds.

Stipa - 'Stipa Tenuissima'

This grass species looks extremely delicate with pale yellow-green leaves and feathery plumes of silver-green flowers. This deciduous grass species is extremely versatile and perfect for sunlit gravel gardens. These tender species look wonderful when planted in large containers and can even form lasting borders. Their fluffy flower heads flutter even in the mildest breeze, dancing gleefully and announcing their arrival to other nonchalant ones.

Variegated Purple Moor-Grass - 'Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea Variegata'

This is a compact, clump forming herbaceous grass. Even though it forms tufts, it looks neat because of its compact nature. This grass species have an enchanting beauty with their flat leaves that have stripes of cream and green and rich yellow slender stems. To add to this, their purple flower spikelets – the small flower clusters, made them look simply awesome.

Zebra Grass - 'Miscanthus sinensis Zebrinus'

This graceful, sunny looking grass has stripped leaves with yellowish-white bands imprinted on them. This clump forming grass species has silky-smooth spikes of pinkish white flowers. They perform best when planted in well-drained soils.

Chinese Silver Grass - 'Miscanthus sinensis Gracillimus'

This stylish grass has narrow arching leaves with a prominent, central streak of white, which in autumn turns to a rich bronze shade. This smart ornamental grass species bears spikes of purple flower heads with a tinge of brown. This is generally grown with other summer flowering perennials.

Elijah Blue Fescue - 'Festuca glauca Elijah Blue'

This is the safest bet for the best among the various blue-leaved ornamental grass. These have pointed needle like silvery bluish leaves and petite spikes of blue-green flowers that gradually fade to pale chocolaty color.

Gardeners' Garters - 'Phalaris arundinacea var. picta Picta'
This ornamental grass has pale green leaves, stamped with white stripes. In the summers, it bears creamish-white flower spikes. This flecked ornamental grass play gleefully in full sun or partial shade. This outstanding fast-growing grass looks appealing when used planted by a stream or pond side.

Hakonechloa - 'Hakonechloa macra Alboaurea'

This ornamental grass looks perfectly stunning with thicket of arching stems with narrow, pale green leaves, flamboyantly striped in brilliant yellow and thorny flowers. It’ s difficult to ignore this diminutive grass species for the splash of color that these wear. When positioned in full sun, these develop a slight ruddy appearance. In addition to being beautiful, these are also ‘ self emerging’ species.

Japanese Sedge - 'Carex oshimensis Evergold'

This ornamental grass grows as mounds of dark green leaves with a prominent central strip that looks somewhat creamish yellow. With the arrival of spring, brownish flower spikes make their appearance. It’ s a great idea to blend these with other ornamental grasses have complementary shrubbery.

Pampas Grass - 'Cortaderia selloana Rosea'

This ornamental grass looks outstanding with fluffy plumes that have an unusual flush of pink. These are usually tall, growing as large humps of pale green leaves, the edges of which are finely honed. Geographically, these are widely grown in the lowlands as expansive stretches that have well drained soil. These require ample space for growth therefore a medium or large sized garden is preferable.

Other Plants

Passion Flowers – ‘ Passiflora’

With their conspicuous white flowers having purple rings at the center, these flaunt a truly exotic look. With their vibrant eye-catching look they inspire self-passion. These are usually grown as summer plants bearing thread like prickly white filaments and elliptical, bright yellow or ruddy fruits. This is an energetic, least demanding climber that grows happily when planted at the base of a sheltered wall, facing sun. This tropical plant loves hot summers, with some varieties being full hardy. These plants bear luscious edible fruits that taste best when eaten fresh. The fruits and flowers are widely consumed as juice or tea and are perfect for stressed out or anxiety struck souls.

Arun Lily or Cally Lily – ‘ Zantedeschia Aethiopica’

These perennial plants bear extremely attractive pure white flowers with large sunny green brats around the inflorescence. The unusually white hood-shaped flower petals and exquisite arrow-shaped, dark green leaves make these plants a rare beauty. These are clump-forming plants that look arresting when grown beside water bodies wearing the look of water lilies. These plants are active in the summers growing and blossoming in aplenty in sunny locales with moist soil