I can’t understand why more gardeners don’t grow more grasses. They are such versatile and easy plants. They are untroubled by pests and diseases, require almost no maintenance and create an agreeable backdrop for perennials. Their strong lines, either vertical or arching, bring pleasing shapes to a planting scheme, and almost all move with the slightest breeze. They catch the light, so that early morning and late-evening sun seems to set them on fire.
Their only drawback is that, because they are nectarless, they don’t attract bees and butterflies, but, they do have wildlife value. I have seen wasps rasping at the dried leaves to extract the raw material to make paper for their nests.
The late-season grasses, such as miscanthus and calamagrostis, are coming into their prime, generating plumes and pennants of flower. Miscanthus sinensis, a native of east Asia, has produced hundreds of cultivars, although only an expert could tell the difference between many of them.
It is debatable whether we need more than a couple of dozen. Jimi Blake, who gardens at Hunting Brook, near Blessington in Co Wicklow, grew more than 100 miscanthus 10 years ago, but says now: “I’m editing them down to those that really do well.” His favourite is ‘Hermann Müssel’, which he grows interspersed through a border: “It is not as huge as some,” he says. “The leaves are about 4ft to 5ft tall.” The flower panicles, which are a silky buff-pink, stand well above the leaves.
‘Hermann Müssel’ was one of many miscanthus raised by the late Ernst Pagels, a German nurseryman. He died at the age of 93 in 2007, leaving a legacy of more than 100 plants, including some of the very best miscanthus for combining with late-season perennials. He crossed the elegant and fine-leaved old cultivar ‘Gracillimus’ with taller, larger miscanthus and produced hybrids that flower in late summer.
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Among those that are suited to Irish gardens and are not too difficult to find, are those with foliage that becomes warmly tinged with orange or red in autumn. They include ‘Ferner Osten’, ‘Flamingo’, ‘Malepartus’ and ‘Rotsilber’.
Another beautiful miscanthus, with airy, delicate foliage, is ‘Morning Light’. It rarely flowers in our climate, but its barely discernible, longitudinal stripes in white and cream create a dreamy, grey and hazy fountain effect.
‘Morning Light’ was given its name by the late Czechoslovakian-born American nurseryman, Kurt Bluemel, a man who selected and introduced many grasses. One of his best known is the switchgrass, Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’, which grows to about 3ft and bears clouds of pinkish-beige inflorescences.
Bluemel started his first nursery in America in 1964 with another European immigrant, Wolfgang Oehme. The German plantsman became half of Oehme and van Sweden, the design partnership that popularised “prairie planting” — romantic swathes of grasses and perennials. It is thanks to the influence of Oehme and van Sweden, as well as various Dutch and German designers, that most gardeners now plant in a looser and more naturalistic style.
The feather reed-grasses, calamagrostis, have an upright habit and are widely used in perennial plantings. ‘Karl Foerster’ and ‘Overdam’, which is variegated, make dignified punctuation marks in a border and have arched, tawny flowerheads. C. brachytricha and C. emodensis are much more flamboyant plants with bleached blond, show-offy plumes.
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Most of these grasses take two or three years to become a sizeable clump. All make better progress if you prepare the planting hole well with good soil and garden compost, and give them a mulch of well-rotted manure in spring. One genus that can be even slower to bulk up is chionochloa, tussock grasses from New Zealand that swish animatedly with the wind. Perhaps the loveliest is C. rubra, which has pale-green leaves flushed with red. Others to seek out are C. conspicua, C. flavicans, C. flavescens and C. rigida. These swaying individuals deserve a prime spot in a bed where they have room to do their nimble, grassy dance.