Topic: Using Ornamental Grasses

[Garden Manager]

For those of you who grow medium sized evergreen or semi evergreen grasses such as stipas in the garden, can I ask how you arrange them with other plants? Do you plant them in groups, as 'dot' plants or random drifts?
Are they best planted at the front of the border or further back?

I have been growing these grasses in my borders for a couple of years now and cant get the placing and arranging of them quite right. They freqently hide or even smother surrounding plants.

Any ideas would be welcome please.

[betula]

I am not a fan of them.A lot of my customers have them and they always look messy and hard to fit in. :)

[ACE]

I use them for movement, usually drifted through a bed of rigid type plants. Plant as you would your other plants tallest at back, falling lower as you come forward. Use really striking colours to peak through now and again like lichnus vesuvius through a medium bronze grass. Tall grasses like stipa G ideally need supporting by other tall plants, try big alliums and verbena borienses. Foxtail barley looks good with dark dahlias. There are loads of uses I could not work without them.

Look at some of the garden show pictures you can get on the rhs sites and pinch some ideas.

My lastest use for a grass is couch in a hanging basket mixed with a large flowering convolvulus. Well if you have to put up with it make it work for its living.

[betula]

I agree they look OK when first planted but not in the long term,Grass does not belong in flower beds :)


They look best in a bed dedicated to them,in my opinion,well spaced and that way you can really appreciate the movement of the plant,and the look.

[hopalong]

I planted a few round part of the edge of my pond.  They look pretty good there, hovering over the edge of the water.

[GrannieAnnie]

We've use them: where we'd like some privacy, to soften a fence line or corner of a building, as a vertical accent (sometimes accentuated by placing them on a berm), to form a living "wall" into a garden "room", as mentioned already they add movement (and sound), and the prunings which are quite stiff make a dry, bouncy, organic path in the veg. garden (but would not be for the tidy-minded.)  I like that they look good through 3 seasons until we cut them down in the early Spring.

Moving them (the 6-7 ft tall ones) is a major job since the roots are densely matted and the only negative in my opinion. Standing on my shovel and jumping won't cut them!
I only grow ones that aren't invasive.

[GrannieAnnie]

grass with crepe myrtle and assorted perennials and annuals crammed together in my fashion.

[Garden Manager]

Thanks for replies. The more i think about it I think I prefer them used as 'dot' plants running through at irregular intervals to provide structure to the border. I have tried them in big groups but they tend to overpower the surrounding plants and look too 'heavy', the antithesis of the effect they should bring to a border.

I dont think it is a good idea to have too many in a mixed or herbaceous border either. Again I tried putting lots in a border last year with herbaceous plants and looked a bit messy particularly as I used more than one species. I have now thinned the numbers down and restricted the number of species to just the one and it looks better.

[flowerofshona2007]

Have a look at Knoll gardens site !!
I have abou 30 grasses in my mixed boarders but use the light floaty ones so you can see through them to other plants and the heavy ones like zebrina ect mixed in with bigger decidues shrubs for winter interest. We also have them in pots around the formal pond to soften the edge as we can't put plants in the pond the Koi trash them in a few minuets !!
There are so many grasses to chose from its picking the right ones and for praire planting they are stunning :)