Hello and welcome to my brand new website!
I, of course, like all plants (some more than others), but my favorite ones are grasses and conifers. So, because this is the first time that I have a chance to share my thoughts with you, I picked one of them as a subject of What's new: ornamental grasses (When I am using a term "grasses", I do not mean only botanical grasses, but also sedges, rushes, and even some plants from the lily family - all the ones that look "grassy"). Grasses must be not only my favorites, because they are more and more popular. And this is not surprising at all.
To start with, grasses have a natural appearance that is trendy right now. They do not make your garden looks formal and “man-made”, but they remind you of open spaces, of the prairie, of the wild. Their soft and moving silhouettes provide such nice contrast with more rigid plants, with masonry structures. And they come in all different sizes and shapes. You can find grasses shorter than a foot, and some can grow taller than ten feet. They can grow upright, they can create mounds, they can be gracefully arching. To add to this, some of them are dense and can be used for screening, and some of them are more delicate, open and transparent. And do not think that the green is the only color that they provide. They can also be yellow, blue, silver, or even red. The inflorescences (flowers, plumes) can enrich this pallet of colors even more: orange, pink, brown, gold, white to almost black. I think that all this will give you enough to choose from!
To make them more attractive to you, let me add they are very easy to grow and they can thrive in many different conditions. Although most of them love the sun, you still can find some that will grow in a shady spot. Some of them can tolerate very dry locations, some can grow in the water. In most cases they do not need any special soil. And generally, insects and diseases are not a big problem. When it comes to maintenance, they are not demanding at all. They require cutting them down once a year, and dividing once every couple of years. And grasses are stronger than most weeds, so they usually win the competition.
If you want to enjoy them even in the winter time, when nothing else grows (except my other favorites: conifers and evergreens, but this will be our next subject), you can do two things. First, cut them down in the spring. The dried winter grasses give your garden very interesting, sometimes even mysterious look. And second, you can cut some of the inflorescences, bring them home and use them for dried bouquets.
I am sure that this is enough to fall in love with my grasses!
Yours,
Magdalena