🌿 Gentle Movement and Versatility
With their gentle swaying movements in the breeze Ornamental Grasses add an extra, softer, dimension to the garden. Grasses are easily maintained and very versatile, available in a wide range of colours, sizes and heights and fit perfectly in any style of garden; formal, natural, contemporary and cottage.
🌱 Annuals, Perennials, and Seasonal Care
Grasses are either annuals or perennials, deciduous or evergreen with some growing in clumps that can be cut down in Spring to be divided and replanted around the garden. Deciduous varieties of grass need to be cut back each year to keep them looking good. Evergreen grasses will add interest to borders all year round.
🦋 Attracting Wildlife
Ornamental Grasses are very attractive to wildlife, especially Butterflies who use grasses as host plants for their larvae and seed-eating birds enjoy feasting on the seeds produced by smaller seeding grasses like Eragrotis Carpensis and Brixa Maxima at the end of the season.
🇿🇦 Indigenous Varieties
There are some beautiful indigenous Grasses, such as the Miscanthus Carpensis, which is a hardy, medium height clump-forming evergreen grass, commonly known as Daba Grass that has red/brown flower spikes with plumes of pink seed heads and the Miscanthus Junceus (Broom Grass), a tall fast growing hardy evergreen with soft, velvety grey foliage and elegant plumes of small brown flowers February to June. The Pennisetum Setaceum (Purple Fountain grass) is also a popular indigenous grass.
🌾 Creating Garden Structure and Contrast
The tall variegated Miscanthus Sinensis ‘Cabaret’ and the Indigenous Thamnochortus Insignis will make an amazing informal screen in the garden, and any variety of Carex grass will soften edges of pavers, along with Festuca, Black Mondo grass (Ophiopogon Planiscapis Nigrencens) or Bronze Curls.
🎨 Striking Colours and Unique Varieties
Taller, slender varieties of Ornamental Grasses also come in different shades, such as Miscanthus Sinensis Zebranis (Zebra Grass) with its distinctive cream-striped leaves, and the ‘Flamingo’ with attractive pink tinged plumes. For bold colour try Japanese Blood Grass or Melinus Repens which both have deep-red blades.
