One of the most theatrical sights in the autumn garden is the sun glinting through ornamental grasses and setting them ablaze with light; that silky shimmer, that flash of gold revealed by the slightest breeze. However, the skill is not just in choosing the best varieties, you also need to think carefully where to put them.
Look for grasses with clouds of inflorescences, because they catch the light beautifully, gilding the haze of tiny flowerheads that hover above the foliage. The soft, broken outline of these flowering grasses makes them easy to use, blurring the transition between formality and informality. Plant them close to the house or bleed them into a meadowscape beyond more formal planting.
Take care not to combine too many varieties at once. Ornamental grasses create the most dramatic effect in a massed planting, or in bold swathes of seven or more at once. A garden can look messy if the fuzzy outline of inflorescence is combined with too many other shapes. If you are limited by space but you find it hard to limit your planting palette to one shape, try to pick varieties that bloom in succession. You could happily combine an early season grass that flowers in May and June (eragrostis, deschampsia, melica or briza) with one of the later varieties that come into bloom in July or August.
Like the best photographs, good lighting will give you the most memorable effects. Sunlight brings out the best in these ornamental grasses, making the flowerheads gleam, so take into account where light falls at different times of the day. Plant each one where it will create a particular highlight. Think about where the sun hits the garden early in the morning and late in the evening. The firey yellows, purples and reds of different panicums glow like embers if the blazing tones of the setting sun can add to their natural colouring. Stipa gigantea has frothy blossoms of trembing flower panicles that are marvellous when backlit at dawn or dusk.
It also makes a fine punctuation to a herb or gravel garden, and is airy enough to be planted close to one of the windows of the house, or even in a compact front garden if you plant the newer dwarf variety S. gigantea ‘Goldilocks’.
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To enjoy these golden highlights for as long as possible, try to include some of the taller flowering grasses (more than 150cm) that will continue to catch the low light in January. Some of the more transparent grasses, such as molinia, may lose their flowering spikes by the end of November, but more robust grasses, such as Panicum ‘Strictum’, muhlenbergia or a miscanthus, can be relied on to be standing firm even after a few soggy and blustery winter months.
Deschampsia cespitosa
‘Goldtau’ (tufted hair grass)
This versatile grass will do well in sun or partial shade and in all but chalky soil. Good clumps of evergreen foliage give rise to 75cm golden flowering plumes from May to August.
Melica altissima
‘Alba’ (Siberian melica)
The arching green foliage on this low-growing 50cm grass is almost as beautiful as the flowers. Sprays of silvery-white flowers hang like droplets from May to June, adding a delicate note to plantings in light shade.
Sporobolus airoides
(Prairie dropseed)
This bronzed ornamental grass should be planted more widely. Frothy inflorescences sit on top of a neat 120cm clump of foliage from June. Plant in a well-drained site for the best performance.
Molinia caerulea ‘Heidebraut’ (Purple moor grass)
A clump-forming grass with golden flowers and straw-coloured stems. It is native to damp moorlands so will tolerate poor soil and light shade. It will reach about 120cm, and although the delicate flowers often detach by late November, the upright foliage persists well through winter.
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Muhlenbergia lindheimeri
(Big Muhly)
This 130cm ornamental grass has purple-grey plumes from October that make it look like a fountain, especially when the plumes silver with age. Tolerant of difficult conditions, including costal and chalky sites.
Miscanthus ‘Flamingo’
(Chinese silver grass)
A 200cm pink flowering grass with elegant silky pendant flowerheads. These appear from October and make a fine winter skeleton. The 120cm-tall leaves that form an upright clump below the flowers are 2cm wide and have a silvery white highlight to the midrib.
Calamagrostis brachytricha AGM
(Korean feather reed grass)
The fluffy flowerheads of this 120cm grass create a solid feather-duster shape, despite being made up from the most delicate inflorescences. They colour blush-pink in October, turning bronze as winter progresses.
Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’
(Switch grass)
The steely foliage of this upright 125cm grass has distinct purple and blue leaves. From the end of August smoky, pale-pink flower panicles appear, which last into winter.
Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’
(Switch grass)
Grow this 90cm grass for red-tipped leaves and even more intense shades of blue, violet and purple in the autumn and winter months. The delicate billowing flowers appear from the end of August.
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Stipa gigantea ‘Goldilocks’
(Golden oat grass)
A shorter variety of the popular golden oat grass that reaches 1.5m. If you have a lot of space, look out for the giant 2.5m, but reliable, S. ‘Gold Fontaene’.