Add Year-Round Interest to your Garden with Ornamental Grasses

Ornamental grasses are easy to grow and add a feeling of movement and grace to your landscaping. Learn how to add year-round interest to your garden with ornamental grasses in this video by Better Homes and Gardens:

Ornamental grasses comprise a wonderful group of plants; they add a lot of structure to the garden, but they also add grace and movement which is hard to find in most perennials. They don’t need a lot of fertilizer, and they are low water once they are established.

You only need to cut ornamental grasses back once a year, preferably just a few inches above the root line by the spring to get rid of the dead growth. In mid to late spring, you should see new growth coming up, and they actually will flower.
Fountain grass is known for its fuzzy seed heads. Zebra grass, named for its yellow and green striped leaves, is a tall grass that grows to 7 feet. Switch grass gets to about 6 feet, has beautiful airy seed heads and moves easily in the breeze.

Medium size grasses like fountain grasses are good in the front or middle of a flower bed. If you want something in the very front or more of a ground cover, you can go with beautiful sedges. Sedges can be mixed with other ground covers; some grow well in shade, while others can be mixed in with shrubs or other perennials. Mixing sedges with coneflowers and blackeyed susans will give you a native prairie garden feel.

In addition to height, you should also consider whether ornamental grasses are clumpers, spreaders or runners. Clumpers are better behaved; you can divide them and they tend to stay put, although you should watch to see whether they are seeding themselves around. If planting a runner, be sure it has sufficient space to run so you will not be constantly weeding it out of everything. Taller species can act as a living shield or fence to hide an A/C unit, but only during the summer months.

Ornamental grasses can be planted in the spring or in the fall; avoid the summertime when it is hot. Once you have a successful clump, you can divide it. You will need to divide it once the middle becomes hollow and dry. Using a spade or gardening saw, just split the clump into 2-4 pieces and repostition them around your yard or give them to a friend.

Native ornamental grasses are great to have in your garden, but Asian grasses can spread in some parts of the country, so you will need to be mindful of those. Check with your local cooperative extension agency to see if a particular plant would be bad in your area.