The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.
Heavily clothed in green vegetation and reminiscent of a hedgerow, a wall enclosing a garden space directly off the house at Gravetye frames the view to a graceful patchwork of field and forest.
FIND YOURSELF A PLACE TO SIT in William Robinson's Wild Garden at Gravetye Manor and while immersed in artful naturalism you'll find your eye drawn inexorably to the fields and forests that stretch to the horizon. The Wild Garden, first published in 1870. In it he defines an ethic based upon naturalizing native and exotic plants adapted to local conditions, and upon an inclusive view of the potential scope of this activity, which he suggests may be suited to "fields, woods, copses, outer parts of pleasure grounds, and in neglected places in almost every kind of garden." Gravetye, in West Sussex, England, was Robinson's home and landscape laboratory from 1885 to 1935, and the place where he continued to refine his ideas.
In print throughout Robinson's lifetime, The Wild Garden began as a reaction to the static nature of nineteenth-century English gardens, many of which were dedicated to the geometric display of tender herbaceous plants. Robinson knew there was more beauty and practicality in a dynamic mix of hardy perennials, shrubs, and trees, and his approach in many ways fits modern values of diversity and sustainability. He eventually amassed more than 1000 acres (405 ha) surrounding Gravetye Manor, and his later years were primarily dedicated to managing woodlands, lakes, and meadows on this land. Robinson left Gravetye to the Forestry Commission, which has kept the estate relatively intact and, since 1958, has leased the manor house and immediate surrounding acres for operation as a country house hotel. The initial manager, Peter Herbert, deserves credit for restoring the gardens in keeping with Robinson's ideals, and his successors have continued the tradition. It is a rare place, surprisingly close to urban London, with a lot to say about how we might garden today.
New Zealand wind grass, Anemanthele lessoniana, contributes to the informal dynamic of the Flower Garden at Gravetye Manor in England in late July.
If our gardens are to be part of a larger, livable landscape they must allow for creative expression while forging and retaining links to the larger ecology. They must be at once inspiring and conserving, high-spirited and low-maintenance, reflecting and sustaining the rhythms of our lives and homes while speaking to us eloquently of sun and season, community and place. Diverse, durable, and dynamic in nature, grasses are sympathetic to all these ideals, and they deserve further welcome into our deliberate designs.
Plants do make the garden; however, plants are not always the best place to begin when considering design. I prefer to begin with the design ethic, or narrative intent, and by asking questions. Is the purpose of the landscape to be decorative, or are there additional stories to be told? If so, are these stories immediately contextual (about local or regional place) or cosmopolitan (about a multitude of places), or are they a mixture of both? Is the design an independent exercise or should it recognize and tie into the surrounding ground? What are the limits on energy and resources necessary for sustained maintenance?
This topic explores these questions through illustration and analysis of diverse landscapes—large and small, public and private—in which grasses play significant roles.
Grasses in Transition
Transition is an essential element of fine design and the experience of landscape. Transitions from place to place are easiest to understand and design for, but transition through time is more complex since it alters so many aspects of a landscape. The regular transition through seasons can be profoundly dramatic, but over longer periods of time a landscape may move more or less permanently from light to dark, wet to dry, or from field to forest. Because grasses are adaptable, quick to establish, and easily managed, they are natural choices for roles requiring transitional agents: plants that can bridge the ever-changing places in the evolving garden.
FIELD TO FOREST
In temperate climate landscapes, transition from sunlit meadow or field to shaded woods or forest is a common occurrence and often a long-term trend. Visually and experientially, the field is the counterpart to the forest. Open and bright, its mood and sense are dramatically distinct from the forest's enclosure and filtered light.
Deft watercolor strokes convey the light, color, and spatial drama of transition between field and forest in this illustration, titled "Color Note from Bare Woods on the Edge of a Meadow," in Emily Vanderpoel's 1903 book Color Problems, which was written for painters.
My acre (0.6 ha) Pennsylvania garden would seem even more suburban if it wasn't located next to the nearly 5000-acre (ca. 2000-ha) White Clay Creek Preserve. The preserve was my motivation for living where I do, and although the property was mostly open lawn with a few specimen trees when I acquired it, my wife, Melinda, and I have worked steadily to reduce the lawn and re-tree the landscape. The goal is a garden more reflective of the local landscape, which is a mix of re-growth forests and open fields remnant from a long history of agriculture.
At the outset, the property seemed overwhelmingly exposed, and one of the first goals was to create a sense of enclosure in the rear garden, off the south-facing side of the house. An existing hon-eylocust tree provided a center point for a semicircular planting, reminiscent of a local hedgerow, designed to serve as a wall of the enclosure. I intended this green wall to eventually be built of living trees and shrubs, but since planting woody plants in small sizes is the healthiest approach, I planted seedling trees and shrubs and relied upon grasses to provide an immediate sense of enclosure. The grasses superbly served their purpose and years later were removed as light conditions changed and the woody plants matured to fill the role.
By mid May, the foliage of feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foer-ster', effectively creates the sense of a garden room around an existing honeylocust, Gleditsia triacanthos. The shrubs and trees interplanted with the grasses are too small to make any appreciable impact at this stage.
Two years later the flowering grasses are tall and luminous in the late-August sun, while the woody plantings begin to have some presence. Beyond the grasses, an existing hemlock, Tsuga canadensis, is in decline due to an insect pest introduced to North America and is destined for removal.
A decade after the initial planting, the trees and shrubs now form the enclosure, which is regularly used as an outdoor reading and dining room. Although the feather-reed grass is somewhat shade-tolerant, it began to lose vigor as conditions became quite shaded between the woody plants and was removed as originally planned.
This is the south-facing view from the house or the garden room. The trees and shrubs which eventually superseded the feather-reed grass now frame the sweep of Indian grass beyond, which is sidelit or back-lit almost all day long as the sun arcs across our landscape from east (left) to west (right).
Grasses have a new place in this part of the garden. On the south side of the wooded wall, Indian grass, Sorghastrum nutans, flowers in mass in late summer in a space originally covered with mowed cool-season turfgrass. The Indian grass was established by repeatedly broadcasting seeds collected from plants growing along local roadsides.
Autumn foliage color was especially good in 2005, and though the garden grows increasingly wooded, the space on the south side is deliberately protected as sunny habitat for grasses, which now include both Indian grass and the slightly more shade-tolerant switchgrass, Panicum virgatum.
The north edge of the property directly abuts the public road and is partly screened by a diverse mix of deciduous trees and shrubs plus a few white pines, Pinus strobus, and red cedars,Juniperus virginiana. A turfed path wide enough to permit vehicular access to the rear of the property must be maintained between this screen planting and the house. Because of this, the south-facing edge of this planting will remain mostly sunny, providing ideal conditions for many grasses. This edge can be viewed from the front door and from the windows of multiple rooms in the house, so year-round interest is a primary design goal. The edge is planted with grasses mingled with woody shrubs and flowering forbs. Most species are of eastern North American origin, but some are from eastern Asia. The design ethic is that, native or not, all plants must be able to thrive without supplemental water or fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides, and the entire ensemble must be in sync with the seasonal colors and rhythms of the regional landscape.
Two helicopter views illustrate the layout of the front garden and its relation to the house.
The ridgeline of the house runs east to west (top to bottom) and the driveway is at the top of the photo. In early November, despite falling leaves, the public road (running diagonally, upper left) is still largely screened by mixed plantings. The south-facing edge includes many grasses.
The garden is mostly green in late May, in sync with the surrounding regional landscape.
Mid July is typically a low ebb of flowering interest; however, since this design is intended to provide all-season interest, textural interplay is often paramount when flowers are absent. The sharply vertical form of switchgrass, Panicum virgatum 'Northwind', and the rounded basal foliage of Lindheimer's muhly grass, Muhlenbergia lindheimeri, are visually distinct from the textures of companion plants aromatic aster, Aster oblongifolius; threadleaf bluestar, Amsonia hubrichtii; Joe-pye-weed, Eupato-rium dubium; and in the background, cut-leaf smooth sumac, Rhus glabra 'Laciniata'; winged sumac, Rhus copallina; Korean spice-bush, Lindera glauca var. salicifolia; and river birch, Betula nigra.
Grown from locally collected seed, this Joe-pye-weed, Eupato-rium dubium, might win in a butterfly contest with butterfly bush, Buddleja. It is early August and the 'Northwind' switchgrass (at right) continues to provide textural contrast with the swallowtail and bee-laden Eupato-rium.
Switchgrass cultivars (Panicum virgatum 'Northwind', 'Cloud Nine', and 'Dallas Blues') and a couple of unnamed seedlings are blooming in mid September, in time to catch the increasingly low-angled sunlight of approaching autumn.
Texture still matters, but color interest is at peak in October-November, with warm hues of spicebush, sumac, and blue-star set off by the asters' purple-blue and the grasses' yellow and gold.
Panicum virgatum 'Dallas Blues' erupts in volcanic fashion from Aster oblon-gifolius 'Raydon's Favorite'.
Acer tri-folium, a trifoliate maple from eastern Asia, is a ball of fire in late October, framing the front door view north to the grassy edge. Although the road is just beyond, the naturalism and diversity of these plantings give the impression of more wildness than is actually present in this section of suburbia. From the standpoint of suburban habitat, such dense plantings do actually provide important cover and sustenance for local fauna.
December's colors are relatively muted but still of interest as tawny grasses remain standing through a chocolate carpet of asters, with spicebush holding on to its salmon-colored foliage in background.
The pond garden and meadow at the Mount Cuba Center, in Greenville, Delaware, provide an exquisite example of the grace and drama possible in a choreographed transition between field and forest. Dedicated to the study of the Piedmont flora, Mount Cuba has its extraordinarily flower-filled moments, yet the garden's visual play of green architecture and grassy elements is no less powerful.
Mount Cuba was once farmed, and its meadow is part of the land's agricultural legacy. Under the direction of the garden's founder, Pamela Copeland, and her professional staff, the meadow has undergone a transformation from a happen-stantial "old field," sparsely vegetated with some of the local warm-season grasses, including little bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium, and broom-sedge, Andropogon virginicus, to a deliberate meadow garden with these grasses plus Indian grass, Sor-ghastrum nutans, and a mix of flowering forbs. Flowering dogwoods, Cornus florida, both naturally seeded and planted are scattered over the meadow's expanse.
This early May aerial photo explains the relationship between meadow and the lower pond garden, which is enveloped in woods (at right). A low, enclosed, shaded space under a soaring roof of nearly ioo-foot (61-m) tall tulip-poplars, Liriodendron tulipifera; beeches, Fagus grandifolia; hickories; and oaks, the pond garden is the near opposite of the sun-filled, open-to-the-sky meadow. Both the pond and meadow are encircled by perimeter paths which meet at a clearing of the wooded edge separating the two.
Dogwoods are in full bloom in this late-April view from the lower pond to the meadow. The tree canopy is not yet fully leafed out, and the light differential between the pond and meadow spaces is still increasing. The meadow's warm-season grasses are just waking up to growth and are barely green.
The grasses gain their stride over summer, and by early September they are full and luminous in the sunny meadow. Framed by the forest opening, the meadow's luminosity is accentuated by the pond garden's relatively low light.
An overcast October day reveals the warming colors of the grasses, especially that of Indian grass at the higher elevations.
By October's end the grasses' tawny tones are joined by the autumn red and bronze of dogwoods, and by the blue flowers of heart-leaved asters, Aster cordifolius, at the edge.
The view from within one of the meadow dogwoods.
November is witness to the most dramatic transition in color and light values, as beeches add amber and gold to the composition and sunlight again fills both meadow and pond gardens.
The meadow grasses are the most colorful elements in the winter landscape, as evident in this early March photo of a late snow cover.
Imagine this image without the grasses: the delicate snow-tracing of dogwood branches would be lost against more forest, but is dramatically enhanced by the tawny tones of grasses.
GRASSY PATHS & PLACES
Pathways are often the most continuously changing elements in truly dynamic landscapes. Fundamental routes may remain the same, but new paths must evolve along with new or modified destinations. Paths are essentially utilitarian, but good design can transform them into some of the most enjoyable linear experiences within a landscape or garden. The ordered linearity, movement, and luminous dynamics of grasses make them superbly suited for wayfinding functions, and they can also contribute to spacemaking by providing quick and semipermanent enclosures.
This mid-July view looks back toward the house from the cabin space, through the newly opened path in the planted hedgerow. Eminently suited to the dry conditions caused by extensive tree roots, wild-oat, Chasmanthium latifolium, flanks the passage.
Motivated by the desire for a quiet place for conversation and contemplation in all weather but away from modern conveniences and inconveniences such as phones and messages, my wife and I built a tiny cabin at the far corner of the garden. Equipped with wood stove and oil lamp but lacking electricity, it is a highly contrived but effective bit of rusticity that we can walk to and from. It sits between an authentic hedgerow and another we've planted. The most sensible path from the house to the cabin is through the planted row, and I've used grasses to define this passage and to serve as a subtle cue to the diminishing formality ahead.
Spikelets of wild-oat turn tawny by mid October, skirted by white wood aster, Aster divaricatus, and the reddening fall foliage of self-sown sassafras, Sassafras albidum.
Sidelit by the early November sun, the grasses are like signs indicating the pass-through to the little cabin.
Still standing sturdily in early January, the luminous grasses are visible from the main house, serving as an intriguing reminder that the garden is alive with interest and opportunity even during the coldest, most quiet of seasons.
A 2-foot (6o-cm) snowfall fails to flatten the wild-oat, which continues to mark the passage through the planted hedgerow.
Gardeners who live in areas with white-tailed deer know that deer will eat almost anything if they are hungry enough; however, grasses are among the few exceptions to this rule. Grasses can be of further use in reducing deer damage if they are employed as buffers for other more vulnerable plants. Deer tend to be habitual in their routes, and when presented with the choice ofwalking through high grasses or around them, they typically take the literal path of least resistance. The east edge of the cabin space adjoins a field which has been a deer path for many years. Dense barrier plantings of switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, have proved effective in dissuading the deer from nibbling on red cedars that help define the cabin space. The deer are now inclined to walk on by.
A simple path mown through high grasses can be one of the most intensely luminous experiences in any landscape. Photographed in late May, this path through a hayfield runs past our property across community open space, eventually connecting with the forested White Clay Creek Preserve.
Much more formal than a mown path through a hayfield but no less luminous is this wild-oat-lined walkway down the center of the main parking lot at Long-wood Gardens in Pennsylvania. Longwood has always sought to make the garden experience begin as visitors arrive and exit their vehicles. The wild-oat, Chasmanthium latifolium, is tough enough to withstand the shady, dry, seasonally hot conditions in the parking lot with a minimum of care.
Wild-oat offers a radiant experience for Longwood Gardens visitors in early June.
The durable grasses are still effective in December.
Little bluestem, Schizachyrium sco-parium, contributes a loose grace and sense of separation from the road to this public pathway in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in late September. This grass is also exceptionally drought-tolerant and well-suited to sunny urban conditions.
Tussock sedge, Carex stricta, provides a softly guiding edge along a rough-hewn stone path in a private garden in New York State.
Grasses are essential tothespatial organization of the Toronto Music Garden, designed by Julie Messervy in collaboration with Toronto's Parks and Recreation Department. Built on land reclaimed from industrial dereliction, this waterfront park is a landscape interpretation of Jo-hann Sebastian Bach's First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, with curving, swirling, undulating paths expressing the spirit of the Suite's various movements.
Karl Foerster's feather-reed grass, Caiamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster' (foreground), is employed with Miscanthus sinensis and fountain grasses, Pennisetum alopecuroides, to enclose spaces within the park.
Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, is as effective as stone or masonry in defining the park's pathways.
Like many projects in public gardens and parks, the Terrace Garden at the Delaware Center for Horticulture was completed in increments as funding became available. These three photographs illustrate the roles grasses have played over a seven-year period in the maturation of the garden.
The initial phase of the Rodney Robinson Landscape Architects design for the Terrace Garden made extensive use of found objects and recycled materials to create the landscape's organizing hardscape, as shown in this 1997 photo. The granite pavers were unearthed during renovation of the property, which had once included a city street. The millstone was also discovered during excavation for the Center's buildings. The lampposts, installed in the garden as storied sculptural elements, were originally part of the lighting system for the adjacent Brandy-wine Park.
As an interim step, Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' was planted in a half circle to create a near-instant garden room. The ground it was planted in was so compacted from the building construction process that a pickax was necessary to create planting holes for the grasses. The vigor of the miscanthus in this 1999 photo attests to its durable nature.
The miscanthus was eventually removed as additional funding allowed for the completion of the garden's plan, which includes other artifacts from the city's history recycled as garden benches and planters. The completed garden, shown here in August 2004, employs more than a dozen grasses, sedges, and rushes in its design.
Drought-tolerant, long-lived Festuca glauca 'Siskiyou Blue' defines a casual pathway in a private garden in sunny San Luis Obispo, California, in early April.
Prairie dropseed, Sporobolus hetero-lepis, is a softening, unifying element in this path system at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
SHADE STRATEGIES
Pathways through shaded spaces or spaces that are becoming shaded require a different palette of grasses. True grasses that will bloom in deep shade are limited in number, so as available light diminishes, look increasingly to sedges for design solutions.
California fescue, Festuca californica, is, like wild-oat, Chasmanthium latifolium, among the few true grasses (Poaceae) that will bloom significantly in shade as well as in sun. In this early April photo at the University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley, California fescue begins flowering along a path shaded by big-leaf maple, Acer macro-phyllum.
Eastern North American plumegrasses, including this giant plume-grass, Saccharum giganteum, will typically flower even in shade conditions. This September view is from a raised boardwalk in the Norfolk Botanical Garden's Virginia Native Plant Garden, which displays historic plant communities of tidewater and southeastern Virginia.
Softly textured masses of flowering tufted hair grass, Deschampsia cespitosa, flow from the edge of a pathway at the Chicago Botanic Garden in early June. Both D. cespitosa and crinkled hair grass, D. flexuosa, bloom well in light shade.
The path from the driveway to the often-used rear door of the house where my wife and I live was in full sun when I began making the garden but is now increasingly, pleasingly enclosed and shaded by deciduous trees and shrubs. This walk relates to the rear garden, which in turn relates to the adjacent preserve, and because of this, the theme of this walk is mostly local in palette and pattern. Two years ago we removed an unnecessary egress from the bluestone walk, extending the woodland path border approximately 15 feet (4.5 m) into area formerly occupied by lawn. Local sedges are important elements in the new planting.
As the garden has matured and its routes have evolved, this opening from the rear path became superfluous. Increasing shade and root competition were making it unsuited to turf, particularly the unwatered, unfertilized, unthatched, generally unpam-pered turf that is the only type we tolerate. In March of the following year, the turf was removed mechanically (without herbicides), soil from our garden compost was added to bring the area to level, and new plantings were installed.
By May the gap has been closed and the ground covered with a mix of local forbs, ferns, and sedges, including Carex flaccosperma, C. laxiculmis, C. albicans, and C. appalachica.
This combination of woodland stonecrop, Sedum ternatum; Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides; white wood aster, Aster divaricatus; and blue woodland sedge, Carex flaccosperma, has proved durably shade-tolerant and drought-tolerant.
Blue woodland sedge is particularly blue by mid September, when it is enhanced by the flowering of the wood asters. The bamboo rail is a temporary device functioning as a "path closed" sign for the resident golden retriever.
Wild-oat, Chasmanthium latifolium, leans over the bluestone into the early September sun, providing a welcome display for anyone walking westward, which is the direction of any returning resident or guest. This common grass has been a fixture along the walk since it was first planted nearly fifteen years ago. It is an oft-repeated element in our garden, having proved itself completely adapted to our conditions and management. It self-sows gently, but is never a nuisance because we don't irrigate the garden except in rare, extended droughts. Despite its native status in eastern North America, this tough grass can be quite an opportunist in naturally moist or artificially irrigated landscapes.
The repetitive experience of necessary paths can be an extremely rewarding one for observant eyes. In late August, wild-oat nestles its kelly-green spikelets against the exfoliating bark of river birch, Betula nigra 'Heritage', along the walk
By early October the wild-oat spikelets are translucent amber.
Disarticulation is the botanical term for the coming apart of grass spikelets. The spikelets of wild-oat begin disarticulating by late November; however, they and their shadows are no less intriguing.
Mid November brings high color to trees and shrubs bordering the walk, and as deciduous herbaceous plants in the ground layer recede, the evergreen foliage of Carex flaccosperma and the ferns becomes increasingly evident.
Unlike our rear walk which is regionally themed, the front walk is an eclectic mix of eastern North America, eastern Asia, and a little bit of eastern Europe. Situated on the north side of the house and consistently moist in the shadows, it requires a different plant palette.
In early May the walk is a restful study in green. bottom Limited sunlight returns to the walk in November as deciduous trees and shrubs turn color and drop their leaves. The foliage of the grasses and sedges eventually dries with dormancy, but typically remains evident and subtly attractive through winter.
The variegated creeping broad-leafed sedge, Carexsiderosticha 'Variegata', represents a species found in mountain woods in Japan. It is well adapted to conditions along the walk and we also value it as a reminder of hikes in Japanese woodlands. The variegated foliage, well-developed in this late-May photo, brightens the shady front walk.
Though Bowles' golden sedge, Carex elata 'Aurea', is derived from a species native to wet habitats in northern and eastern Europe, it has persisted without irrigation for a decade in the moist shade provided by the north wall of the house. Its joyful yellow-green is especially vibrant in spring, as illustrated by this late-May photo, and gradually darkens over summer. To its right is a white-variegated Hakone grass, Hakonechloa macra 'Albovariegata', which was selected from a species native to wet, rocky cliffs in Japan's Hakone mountains. Its foliage starts the season green with thin yellow stripes that turn ivory white over the summer. Other companion plants include Ajuga, Athyrium nipponicum, Bergenia, Ceratostigma, Rodger-sia, and Pachysandra procumbens.
The Mix and the Matrix
Grasses may be parts of the overall planting mix, or they may be, as they once were in many historic grasslands, the fundamental matrix into which everything else is set. In either case, the effective integration of grasses into designs for livable landscapes requires understanding of fundamental strategies for working with light, line, texture, form, color, sweep, scale, and available moisture.
WORKING WITH LIGHT
Capturing the inherent translucency and luminous potential of grasses requires an awareness of the direction, strength, and periodicity of sunlight in the landscape. Backlighting and sidelighting are most dramatic, and even relatively shady places offer moments when sunstreams can work magic. For any of this to be effective, the positions of grasses must be matched both to the sun and to likely viewing patterns. For example, a path used most in morning light should have an easterly direction (in the Northern Hemisphere), or at least a section heading east, if it is to offer a glimpse of directly backlit grasses. A window facing south offers a potential view of grasses that are sidelit in morning and afternoon and backlit during midday. Luminous grasses are also most effective when positioned against opaque, dark-colored backgrounds. In many situations, shadows can serve the same background purpose.
Low-angled rays of the mid-November sun transform dry fountain grasses, Pennisetum alopecuroides, into a literal lightshow in the Blithewood Rose Garden on the Bard College Campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. A few simple design features combine to create this effect. The view is almost unavoidable at sundown: as you crest the slope above the garden, the natural view is down to the sidelit walled garden. The translucent grasses are also positioned between two simple, dark-colored, opaque elements: the low evergreen hedge and the brick wall.
The absolute opacity of a clipped yew in Beth Chatto's garden in Colchester, England, is the perfect foil for the radiant seedheads of giant feather grass, Stipa gi-gantea, in late July.
A continuous sweep of Mexican feather grass, Nassella tenuissima, is an inescapably glowing delight in this Southern California garden designed by Nancy Goslee Power.
WORKING WITH LINE
Quality of line is one of the grasses most-refined attributes, and as with use of the luminous quality of grasses, the use of line in design requires careful consideration of background, texture, sunlight, shadow, and contrast.
The graceful arching lines of this purple moor grass, Molinia caerulea 'Dauerstrahl', create the drama in this composition in a private garden by Hermann Mussel in Hei-genhausen, Germany, in late August. Despite their common name, the purple moor grasses are mostly green, and the greatest distinction between various cultivated varieties is in the line of their flowers and seed-heads. For example, 'Dauerstrahl' is typically arched, 'Strahlenquelle' is so lax its stems are sometimes nearly horizontal, and 'Moor-hexe' is nearly vertical.
Two views of Peter's Pond at Long-house Reserve in East Hampton, New York, illustrate the inspired use of the fine lines of Miscanthus sinensis to set off sculptural forms both linear and spherical.
Color isn't entirely responsible for the drama in this combination of miscanthus and Dale Chihuly's glass sculpture. Despite the fact that both the grass and the sculpture are linear, the pendant curves of the grasses contrast effectively with the straight vertically of the glass rods.
Two views of Peter's Pond at Long-house Reserve in East Hampton, New York, illustrate the inspired use of the fine lines of Miscanthus sinensis to set off sculptural forms both linear and spherical.
The linearity of the grasses is completely distinct from that of Grace Knowlton's spheres, lotus leaves, and ripples on the surface of the pond.
The design by Oehme, van Sweden, and Associates for the gardens of the Great Basin at the Chicago Botanic Garden makes liberal use of Karl Foerster's feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster', and for good reason: this widely adaptable, cold-hardy, noninvasive grass offers some of the most powerfully architectural linearity to be found among the grasses. At Chicago, it is especially effective in association with the graceful railings and bridges that connect to Evening Island.
The combined effects of grassy line and luminosity can rival the impact of any composition based on color. When evaluating the strength of composition, I often try to think in black and white, or as technology permits, to actually render the design in black and white. Compare these two images. Although the robin's-egg blue of the bridge and the tawny color of the grass are undoubtedly pleasing, this composition is still powerful with the color removed.
The lines of feather-reed grass are no less strong than the steel uprights of the railings.
WORKING WITH TEXTURE & FORM
Line, texture, and form are of course closely related, and perhaps the best feature of designs reliant upon these attributes is that their interest is generally of much longer duration than color-based designs. Although most grasses are linear in nature, their textures and forms run the gamut and provide limitless possibilities for durably effective compositions with other plants or with inorganic elements including stone, sculpture, and architecture.
Forget the color. Here's another composition that would work in black and white. The vertical line and form of Karl Foerster's feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster', are distinct from the horizontal ground line and the flat-topped flower clusters of orange butterfly-weed, Asclepias tuberosa. Photographed in late June at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
This combination of blue fescue, Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue', and lamb's-ear, Stachys byzantina 'Helene von Stein', illustrates the effectiveness of linear-lined, soft-textured grasses and broad-leaved, bold-textured companions.
The form and texture of weeping tussock grass, Chionochloaflavicans, are boldly complemented by the purple cabbage tree, Cordy-line australis 'Purple Tower', in this late-August (winter) planting on South Island, New Zealand.
Two architectural plants of complementary textures meet their match as Karl Foerster's feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster', erupts from sea-holly, Eryngium giganteum 'Silver Ghost', in Piet Oudolf's borders at the Royal Horticultural Society's garden, Wisley, in Surrey, England, in mid July.
In another example of Piet Oudolf's textural wizardry, yellow coneflower, Echinacea para-doxa, jumps out from a soft background of tufted hair grass, Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau', also at Wisley in mid July.
Giant miscanthus, Miscanthus xgiganteus, and Ligularia dentata wage a battle of bold textures on Friendship Island (Freundschaftsinsel) in Potsdam, Germany, in late August. This planting is part of the lovingly restored 15-acre (6-ha) park, which was originally laid out by Karl Foerster between 1938 and 1940 to display shrubs, perennials, ferns, and grasses.
In early April at the University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley, an undetermined species of muhly grass, Muhlenbergia, is the textural opposite of various Echinopsis cactus species.
This Sea Garden planting at the entrance to the Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Australia, employs Carex comans 'Frosted Curls', Asparagus densiflorus 'Myersii', and Muehlenbeckia complexa trained on wire forms to create a textural fantasy sure to captivate young and old minds. Andrew Laidlaw designed the forms to resemble kelp, flowing with the current and pointing toward the main entrance gates.
The cascading form of silver spike grass, Achnatherum cala-magrostis 'Lemperg', is a visually dynamic presence in late August between a paved walk and masonry pillars in this public space designed by Hans Simon in Marktheiden-feld, Germany.
Sculptural objects and artifacts can create textural drama with grasses while telling stories at the same time. Isobel Gabites's design of her garden in Otaki, New Zealand, nestles crucibles from old foundries with red tussock grass, Chionochloa rubra, and rengarenga lily, Ar-thropodium cirrhatum. Isobel sees a connection between the grass, which is prevalent on North Island, New Zealand's volcanic plateau, and the crucibles, which once spilled molten steel.
On a large scale, the form and texture of Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus' humanize paved expanses and sharp-edged boulders in New York's Battery Park City in late June.
Chairs handmade by the staff at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania, are set off by the softly rounded forms of Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' in mid September.
The modest meadow area in my Pennsylvania garden is visible when looking south through a glass-walled room in the house, and on any clear day the grasses are illuminated from sunrise to sundown. Amid the grasses is a sculpture crafted from discarded sections of sash vents from the Longwood Gardens Main Conservatory that were replaced during restoration in the mid-1990s. The sash is constructed of old-growth cedar hand-sheathed in copper, with individual lights in groups of eight divided by cross muntins. I set the sash vertically, forming a ziggurat deliberately evoking the New York City skyscrapers I learned to love in my youth, and Melinda promptly named it Meadow Metropolis. This casual exercise has stood for a decade and along with the grasses functions as our sundial.
The distinct line, form, texture, and luminous characteristics of the sash and Panicum virgatum 'Prairie Wind' combine for a good show in late September.
Two photos taken on the same day in late August illustrate the dramatic interplay of sunlight through switchgrasses, Panicum virgatum, and the remaining eighty-year-old acid-rain-etched glass in the Meadow Metropolis.
There's very little luminous quality in a late 1930s Farmall F12 tractor, and that's the point here. The tractor provides the necessary opacity and framing for Indian grass, Sorghastrum nutans, and the turning leaves of cutleaf sumac, Rhus glabra 'Laciniata', in late October. After reading Leo Marx's Machine in the Garden, which ruminates on America's contradictory passions for mythic wilderness and the convenience of machine technology, I resolved to put a machine in my garden. Forsaking a Buick, for practical reasons, I settled on a machine that functions as sculpture, or as a provocateur, asking questions such as, Was this part of Pennsylvania once farmed?
WORKING WITH COLOR
When casting for color, grasses are sometimes suited to play lead characters. More often they are best acting in support, and their nuanced performance of these roles is a credit to the entire ensemble. The gently varied greens of grass foliage are almost universally color-compatible and can be used alone for their restful effect or to provide a harmonizing background for more colorful flowering companions. Cool-blue grasses can serve similar purposes, or they may be used to reveal and enhance the foliage and flower colors of other plants. Yellow-leaved and red-leaved grasses, though few, can rival the color impact of flowering perennials and shrubs and may be treated as equals to flowers in color composition. This is also true of the many grasses that take on vivid autumn hues of gold, orange, red, and burgundy. Though not colorful in a technical sense, the white-variegated foliage of many cultivated grasses provides some of the boldest possible contrast with richly hued flowers and foliage. The silvery tones of grass flowers are essentially neutral and can add sparkle to a subtly colored planting or welcome respite in exceptionally color saturated compositions. The muted tones of dormant grasses superbly complement the winter colors of bark and lingering berries on trees and shrubs.
Primary and secondary colors in the foliage of little bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium 'The Blues', complement the flowers of Lobelia xgerardii 'Vedrariensis' and Perovskia atriplicifolia 'Little Spire' in late August in Piet Oudolf's borders at the Royal Horticultural Society's garden, Wisley, in Surrey, England.
We so often picture gardens only at their most exuberant moments; however, the quieter, season-to-season, day-in and day-out livability of our landscapes truly matters most. While photographing for this topic, Melinda and I visited our friends Norio and Mitsuyo Ueda at their Tokyo home. We arrived on a dim, rainy day at the end of November, yet the garden was truly captivating. Themed in green and visible from the glass door of the guest bedroom, the small enclosed garden made it seem incredible that we were in fact in one of the most urban centers in the world.
The garden is in steady view from the Ueda's Tokyo town home guest room.
Norio's design eschews lawn for a green mosaic that includes diminutive, narrow-leaved forms of Miscanthus sinensis along with multiple Japanese sedges.
Variegated Carexoshimensis 'Evergold' brightens the landscape even at the end of a rainy, late-November day.
Light green globes of Miscanthus sinensis 'Variegatus' are a powerful presence among dark greens in late June at Ashland Hollow in northern Delaware.
The intense, dark green of Cape rush, Chondropetalum tectorum, supports and accentuates the brightly colored flowers of Leucospermum cordifolium 'Yellow Bird', a pincushion protea originating, like the Cape rush, in South Africa. Photographed in late June at Leaning Pine Arboretum in San Luis Obispo, Califormia.
This color geometry relies only on the foliage of New Zealand natives Festuca actae (blue-green) and Carextenuiculmis (bronze) at the Auckland Botanic Gardens in late August (winter).
Many grasses undergo remarkable color changes over the course of a growing year.
In mid May, variegated Hakone grass, Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola', is a yellow-green highlight among Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides; wild-ginger, Asa-rum canadense; threadleaf bluestar, Amso-nia hubrichtii; and Korean spice viburnum, Viburnum carlesii, at the Delaware Center for Horticulture in Wilmington.
By mid November, the Hakone grass is amber, the bluestar is dark gold, the viburnum is burgundy, the ginger is going dormant, and the fern remains dark green.
Flowering bulbs are often ideal color companions for grasses, since the majority of bulbs flower when grasses are in leaf, and many grasses flower when bulbs are dormant. The mutual drought tolerance of many bulbs and grasses also suits them for combined planting. Two views of a slope at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania show the spring sequence of interplanted bulbs and grasses.
Larger daffodils are at their peak in mid April. The foliage of cool-season grasses including blue moor grass, Sesleria caeru-lea, and Karl Foerster's feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster', are already contributing to the composition, while warm-season grower prairie dropseed, Sporobolus heterolepis, is just breaking dormancy (lower left).
The flowering display of the bulbs is mostly finished by the first week of May, except for later types such as the triandrus hybrid miniature daffodil Narcissus 'Hawera', blooming between clumps of prairie dropseed (at bottom). The foliage of the larger daffodils, which would normally become increasingly unsightly as the bulbs go dormant, is already attractively cloaked by grasses.
Later-blooming bulbs can be used to introduce flowering interest in the period before warm-season grasses bloom. In early June, flowering onion, Allium christophii, and poppies enliven a path at the Chicago Botanic Garden lined with switchgrass, Panicum virgatum 'Dallas Blues', and Russian sage, Perovskia atriplicifolia.
Detail of Panicum virgatum 'Dallas Blues' and Allium christophii.
The sharp blue of Elymus magel-lanicus is an equal partner in Christopher Lloyd's exuberant color scheme at Great Dix-ter, in Northiam, England, in late July 2005.
My wife and I have enjoyed the color match of flowering purple muhly grass, Muhlenbergia capillaris, and the autumn foliage of flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, in our own Pennsylvania garden in early October.
This early August color composition at North Creek Nurseries in Landen-berg, Pennsylvania, would be less effective without the neutral band of side-oats grama, Bouteloua curtipendula, flowering between golden Rudbeckia nitida and purple Vernonia noveboracensis.
LEVELS OF FORMALITY & CONTROL
Despite their inherently casual nature, grasses have been welcomed into gardens at all levels of formality and control. At one end of the design spectrum they may be placed in set positions to reinforce immutable geometry, and at the other they are planted or sown and allowed to migrate toward the most hospitable niches.
Umbrella sedge, Cyperus alternifolius, skirts the brick pillars of the formal lily pond garden at El Encanto in Santa Barbara, California. This historic hotel has for decades maintained the charm of old-world Hollywood, with continuous gardens conjuring up the image of a lush tropical paradise.
The walled Victorian Garden at Lau-ritzen Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska, is a modern iteration of a nineteenth-century design, with Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' reinforcing the masonry's formal geometry and papyrus, Cyperus papyrus, displayed in a container at the center of the pool. An intriguing modern twist is the extensive use of architectural elements salvaged from historic Omaha buildings.
Though the masonry and yew hedges of the Sunk Garden at Great Dixter in Northiam, England, are of formal design, Christopher Lloyd's plantings, which make imaginative use of grasses, are highly informal. Visible in this late-July view are Karl Foerster's feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster' (left foreground); Miscanthus sinensis (far center); and pale galingale, Cyperus eragrostis, a green sedge which is allowed to seed freely among carpets of the red-seeded Acaena novae-ze-landiae.
SWEEP & SCALE
When the scale of a landscape allows, grasses in great sweeps and masses can be extraordinarily powerful elements in design; however, it is quite possible to miniaturize this effect with surprising success. Many years ago friends of mine planted a curving drift of feather-reed grass in their Pennsylvania garden, viewable from the kitchen window. Although the entire gesture was perhaps only 10 feet (3 m) wide, it evoked the prairie, or perhaps dune grasses on a remote beach.
Scale and levels of control are also closely related. In large landscapes, planting grasses from seed without precise order is often the most practical way of introducing the power of a grassy matrix with minimal effort and subsequent maintenance. When space is limited or the design more formal, deliberate positioning of grasses and routine management of the balance of grasses and companion plantings may be justified.
Colorful sweeps of Tridens flavus flank the long gravel drive in the Barton garden in Landenberg, Pennsylvania, in a fine example of achieving maximum results with a minimum of well-directed control. The purpletop is self-sown, establishing itself in the sunny edges of the drive as the Bartons reduced regular mowing and adopted a semiannual schedule that prevents woody regrowth but favors this purple-flowered perennial grass.
Hans Simon's "praerie" at the Berg-garten in Hanover, Germany, makes extensive use of North American prairie species and is a deliberate reference to the historic prairie, yet it also integrates a number of European and Asian species that fit the "look" of a prairie and are adapted to the conditions in urban Hanover.
Viewed from the roof of the Rain Garden in late August, Hans Simon's "praerie" garden inserts a great sweep of grasses and broad-leaved flowering companions to the Berggarten. Bordered and bisected by pathways, it is a wonderful respite from the vast formality of the adjacent Herrenhau-sen gardens
Calamagrostis brachytricha from Korea and Sesleria autumnalis from eastern Europe mix with North American Helenium and Silphium species at the Berggarten in a durably eclectic mix that is evocative of the prairie but is in no way a literal recreation. Though forbs were present in the historic North American prairie, they were rarely as prevalent as they are in plantings such as this one or others at the Royal Horticultural Society's garden, Wisley, in Surrey, England, or in Chicago's Millennium Park.
North American prairie grass species Panicum virgatum and Sorghastrum nutans mingle with flowering broad-leaved species of Echinacea, Liatris, Ratibida, Aster, and others, also of North American origin.
Piet Oudolf's broad sweep of tufted hair grass, Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau', at the Royal Horticultural Society's garden, Wisley, in Surrey, England, strongly evokes the wild abandon of native grasslands, yet it is in fact an element in highly ordered garden artistry. The durability of the pattern and balance of grasses and their companions here results from Piet's informed selection of long-lived, locally adapted plants. The mix is entirely eclectic.
Dave Fross's sweep of purple three-awn, Aristida purpurea, in the Morgridge garden in San Luis Obispo, California, is simpler and much more rooted in place than the eclectic "praerie" garden. Purple three-awn is an essential and historic element in California's coastal grasslands, and is superbly suited for livable landscapes at all scales designed to be sustainable within the limits of the region's soil, sun, and rainfall.
Sometimes the most subtle gestures tell the surest story of grasses in the regional landscape. Purpletop, Tridensfla-vus, gets its name from the purple cover it puts on eastern old fields and meadows in late summer. Winterthur Museum, Gardens, and Library occupy nearly 2000 acres (ca. 800 ha) on the rolling piedmont of northern Delaware, and the natural landforms rival any garden artifice. Though Winterthur is renowned for its Robinsonian woodland gardens, it was once a working farm with dairy herds and a train station, and founder Henry Francis du Pont envisioned the peripheral grounds to be an essential part of the garden. This management ethic is still alive today and is evident in these late-summer photographs, when due to selective mowing, Winterthur's far hills and slopes are dusted purple by T. flavus.
Clear blue skies, puffy white clouds, and hillsides of purpletop are quintessential components of a late-summer day in northern Delaware. Winterthur's carefully managed mowing is responsible for the thriving Tridens flavus, which is a locally native species adapted to sunny meadow conditions.
Tridens flavus highlights Winterthur's rolling landforms along the road to the historic railroad station where milk from Winterthur's dairy was once shipped.
LANDSCAPES WET & DRY
The extraordinary diversity of grasses and their relatives includes species suited for almost any conceivable moisture level. The most conserving approach to their use is of course to first take stock of available moisture and then select appropriately adapted species. Wetland species can contribute powerfully to both the visual appeal and stability of moist landscapes. Dryland species can be similarly soil-conserving, while eking out unusual beauty from landscapes that are literally or ethically beyond the reach of a watering hose.
The green architecture of narrow-leaved cattail, Typha angustifolia, complements an urban fountain in New York's Battery Park City. Even the most formal garden can point to fundamental ecological connections, and anyone intrigued by the beauty of this local species in this fountain habitat is more likely to notice the roles T. angustifolia plays in New York's Hudson River watershed environment.
Though masterful in its textural and color artistry, Beth Chatto's composition in which she positions Carexelata 'Aurea' at the edge of a natural pond in her garden in Colchester, England, also mimics the habitat preference of this European sedge species. Its companions, Gunnera, Pontederia, Nymphaea, and Taxodium, are from different parts of the world but share a habitat preference for wet edges.
The deft use of line and form in this design at the Auckland Botanic Gardens succeeds from a purely decorative standpoint; however, the display also illustrates the merits and habitat preference of New Zealand native rush, Juncus kraussii, which deserves greater attention in gardens and conserved landscapes.
Although it is so authentic in detail as to appear as local habitat, this waterfall and pond garden on private property in New York State is almost entirely crafted. The garden's design intent is to embrace the beauty of eastern North American plants in habitat associations, such as this planting dominated by wet-edge species including tussock sedge, Carex stricta, and cinnamon fern, Os-munda claytoniana.
Tussock sedge, Carex stricta, and Joe-pye-weed, Eupatoriumfistulosum, are natural companions along the edge of this rocky stream within the Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve and Biological Research Station in Rensselaerville, New York. Neither species was deliberately planted, but both come under Preserve management, which is dedicated to protecting the natural beauty, ecological health, and local ecological diversity of the Lake Myosotis watershed, including surrounding lands and waters.
A diverse mix of grasses, sedges, and rushes, including Panicum virgatum, Juncus effusus, and Schoenoplectus tabernae-montani, holds the banks and helps filter the waters.
During the Gardens of the Great Basin project, lake edges of the Chicago Botanic Garden were re-engineered and replanted with an appropriately adapted plant palette which contributes to the landscape's long-term health and beauty.
This approach is both beautifully and supremely more sustainable than the sterile steel-edged or turfgrass-edged eroding banks that have traditionally been common in many public parks and gardens.
In early June, a lake edge is stabilized by the green tussock sedge, Carexstricta, at the wettest margin and by the blue-green growth of switchgrass cultivars Panicum virgatum 'Dallas Blues' and 'Cloud Nine'.
By early October, the flowering switchgrasses tumble gracefully over the sloping edge.
Grasses offer myriad opportunities for attractively vegetating the most challenging, dry conditions without the need for supplemental irrigation. For those of us who believe the growth of sustainable gardens is a good thing and who also appreciate the global need for water conservation, grasses are essential tools. The suitability of grasses for dry conditions can often be easily observed by examining local habitats, both undisturbed and disturbed. For example, little bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium, is a prairie species that ranges through some very dry natural habitats, and it also frequently establishes itself in droughty, low-nutrient conditions in built environments. This parking lot island planting of little blue-stem at the Adkins Arboretum in Ridgely, Maryland, makes use of this local grass's adaptability.
Sustainable dry gardens needn't be regional in theme or palette. Beth Chatto's gravel garden assembles a world mix that can thrive in the driest conditions on her site in Colchester, England, without irrigation, as typified by this late-July grouping of Poa labillardieri, a blue grass from Australia and New Zealand, with Bergenia, Origanum, and Stachys.
Nassella tenuissima wends its way through wine cups, Callirhoe involu-crata; orange butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa; and lavenders on the Sun Steps at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Though rainfall regularly exceeds 40 inches (102 cm) annually in this part of the state, water conservation is still a worthy goal. This rapturous, unirrigated garden proves style and conservation needn't be mutually exclusive.
Purple three-awn, Aristida purpurea, mostly dormant in early April, covers the ground around prickly pear cactus, Opuntia phaeacantha, in an arid California native section of the University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley.
Mexican feather grass, Nassella tenuis-sima, joins fountain grasses from arid Africa and a diverse mix of southwestern North American cacti and succulents in a water-wise garden at the San Luis Obispo County Office in California.
Covering the Ground
It's time for heavily irrigated cool-season turf to be replaced by better models of grass plantings to cover the ground. Though walkable turfgrasses are not generally within the scope of this topic, there are many grasses and sedges, both running and clumping, that can cover ground with great beauty and utility. This group deserves mention here.
Although not walkable like a cool-season turfgrass lawn, Sporobolus heterolepis creates a highly attractive lawnlike effect at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania, in mid June, without the constant watering and associated maintenance of traditional lawn.
Blue fescue, Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue', attractively carpets a parking lot island at the Chicago Botanic Garden in early June. Though the clump-forming blue fescues in the F. glauca complex have one of the longest traditions of use as groundcovers, they are not ideal choices for the long term because they tend to die out at the center after a few years and therefore require relatively frequent renewal. Good drainage, especially in winter, can lengthen the service life of such plantings, but ultimately it is worth considering different, longer-lived grasses if clump-forming species are to be used for groundcover.
Prairie dropseed, Sporobolus heterolepis, is a good example of a clump-forming grass that is so long lived and durable as to be practical for semipermanent ground-cover use. A planting between the parking lot and the public road at the Delaware Center for Horticulture in Wilmington demonstrates this grass's effectiveness in covering a dry, nutrient-poor, unirrigated slope.
In early June prairie dropseed is neat and lush. Originally established with individual plants, this planting benefits from the persistent health of the initial clumps and additional, self-sown plants that have come up in between.
The same planting in mid November is mostly dormant but still attractive, especially as a color counterpart to the autumn foliage of deciduous shrubs including Fothergilla gardenii.
Rosa Finsley's entry design for the Lone Star Ranch in eastern Texas employs buffalo grass, Buchloe dactyloides, as groundcover. This exceptionally heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant species hails from the Great Plains region of North America, and its stoloniferous growth creates a self-repairing groundcover that can withstand a considerable amount of foot traffic.
Autumn moor grass, Sesleria au-tumnalis, creates an attractively durable groundcover at the Ega Exhibition Park in Erfurt, Germany, in late August. Many Sesleria species, although clump-formers by nature, are drought-tolerant and long-lived, and make fine choices for long-term ground-cover.
Taller clump-forming grasses with persistent basal foliage can also be practical groundcover choices, as illustrated by these late August (winter) photos of a slope at the Parliament Building in Wellington, New Zealand, planted with green-leaved tussock, Chionochloa flavicans.
Many sedges are suitable groundcovers, with various species suited to anything from sunny and dry to moist and shady. New Zealand orange sedge, Carextestacea, used here to flank steps in a private garden in Peka Peka, is so durable it is frequently used to cover traffic islands in New Zealand.
Variegated sedge, Carex morrowii 'Ice Dance', makes a bright, attractive groundcover at the Ega Exhibition Park in Erfurt, Germany, in late August. This cultivar is especially suited for groundcover use since it spreads steadily but manageably, filling in holes that may appear in a planting.
Of European origin, greater wood rush, including the variegated selection Luzula sylvatica 'Marginata', is a vigorously durable option for low ground-cover in both moist and shady conditions. This early May photo in the author's Pennsylvania garden shows a planting under a spreading apple tree that has remained full and attractive for more than a decade with no irrigation or care beyond an annual spring combing out of the oldest foliage.
Clifford Miller's inspired use of Pennsylvania sedge, Carexpensylvanica, in a Chicago-area garden originally designed by Jens Jensen demonstrates the suitability of this slow-spreading sedge for use as a low groundcover under the shade of deciduous woods.
Grasses in Containers
With imagination, most grasses can be grown and displayed in pots and other decorative containers. Cultivating grasses in containers can eliminate the limitations imposed by stubborn soils, cold winters, or hot summers. Soil for plants grown in pots can be modified to suit the most particular species. Many grasses with multiple-season interest are sufficiently cold hardy to be left outdoors in containers over winter. Truly tender grasses can be grown indoors in warm seasons and held in cold frames or warm storage over winter, while alpine species can be moved to protection from summer heat and humidity. Drought-tolerant grasses can reduce the watering that is typically necessary for container-grown plants, although since grasses rather quickly produce vo- luminous root systems, it is necessary to guard against their becoming pot-bound and constantly thirsty.
Container-grown papyrus, Cyperus papyrus, growing at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania, in late June illustrates the effectiveness of combining other plants in the same container to provide complementary color and textural interest.
Blue wheatgrass, Elymus magellanicus, joins a host of other drought-tolerant plants in this container collection at Beth Chatto's garden in Colchester, England, in late July.
Massive grasses will require large planters if they are to attain anything close to full size, but this needn't be the goal. Many of the largest grasses look good as small specimens, and this is especially true for variegated-leaf cultivars.
The enduring foliage colors of grasses suggest myriad combinations with the variously hued clays and ceramic glazes found on antique and modern pots. Additional color and texture interplay is possible with containers fashioned from recycled objects and artifacts.
An adequately sized pot permits giant feather grass, Stipa gigantea, to reach flowering size at the Royal Horticultural Society's garden, Wisley, England, in mid July.
Photographed in early April, a container wall at the Ladybird Johnson Wild-flower Center in Austin, Texas, provides a suitable year-round site for Mexican feather grass, Nassella tenuissima.
Collegial Landscapes: Grasses in the Public Realm
Looking beyond the proverbial garden border, what further roles may grasses play in our shared spaces: our parks, public gardens, corporate and college campuses, community open space, streetscapes, highways, byways, greenfields, and brownfields? Livable landscapes most often result from a collegial approach to their design and evolution, in which both authority and responsibility are shared among colleagues dedicated to continuous observation and the exploration of possibilities. This next section considers the roles and potential of grasses in a few selected landscapes created in this spirit.
Why deny necessary infrastructure? Nearly all of us consume water from a faucet every day of our lives; however, if you ask people if they'd welcome a water tank in the "borrowed scenery" of their garden, most will say no. I prefer the approach taken at this Sancoa International corporate campus in southern New Jersey, which makes no attempt to hide or disguise the water tank, and instead integrates it visually into the landscape with a sweeping mass of switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, which is an immediately local native species. This view is from an outdoor cafeteria in mid September.
When thinking about grasses and our modern shared landscape, there's perhaps no better place to begin than the parking lot. If parking lots are here to stay, then we might as well treat them as gardens. Grasses offer myriad solutions to the typical challenges of parking lot landscapes, since they can withstand compacted, nutrient-poor, droughty soils, winter winds, and summer heat intensified by reflection from paved surfaces.
A parking lot on the Bard College campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, demonstrates the appealing practicality of a mixed planting of local and exotic species that includes Miscanthus sinensis, Schizachy-rium scoparium, Panicum virgatum, and Pen-nisetum species. Although the Miscanthus and Pennisetum species are not native New Yorkers, the growing season in this part of the Hudson River valley is too short for either to produce viable seed that might pose a risk of invasive behavior in local habitats.
Another view of the same parking lot at Bard College.
Designed by Joe Karr and Associates, the landscape of the Lucent Technologies corporate campus in Lisle-Naperville, Illinois, evokes the Chicago region's once-vast tall-grass prairie. Nearer the building entrance and parking lots, Calamagrostis xacutiflora 'Karl Foerster' is planted in a prairie abstraction. Extended plantings of tallgrass species including Indian grass, Sorghastrum nutans; switchgrass Panicum virgatum; and big bluestem, Andropogon gerardii, stretch over multiple acres to the roadside periphery of the site.
In mid January, white oaks frame warm-season grasses covering Summit Field.
Management of Summit Field includes periodic controlled burns conducted in spring by Metro Parks and the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy.
Iroquois Park is one of eighteen parks and six parkways developed by Frederick Law Olmsted and his successor firm for the city of Louisville, Kentucky. The park rises to a savanna-like plateau that historically included chestnut oaks, post oak, white oak, and warm-season grasses. Known as Summit Field today, the plateau was once called Burnt Knob, a name which offers anecdotal evidence of fires, set by lighting or humans, which may have contributed to the open, grassy conditions. For years Summit Field was maintained in mowed cool-season turf, but in 1996 a joint effort of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy and the city's Metro Parks
Southern California native grasses are featured in Tom Bostrom's design of Cluff Vista Park in Ojai, California. The triangular site, formerly occupied by an abandoned gasoline station, was transformed into a showcase for the Ojai Valley's plants and landscapes through the joint efforts and contributions of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, the city of Ojai, and hundreds of private community members. The park is organized by garden areas featuring different plant associations, including a riparian garden, woodland garden, chaparral garden, and deergrass meadow.
Drought-tolerant California grasses Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince' and Muhlenbergia rigens edge the arbor walkwa; in late June.
The deergrass meadow of Muhlenbergia rigens extends along Ojai Avenue
Wild rye, Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince', contributes blue-gray foliage interest year-round.
The 4-acre (1.6-ha) rooftop garden at the Conference Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, presents trees, wildflow-ers, and grasses native to the surrounding Wasatch mountains and foothills. The Conference Center landscape design by the Olin Partnership treats the building as landform, grouping plants in associations that reflect their natural occurrence at different elevations.
Bristlecone pines, Pinus aristata; wild-flowers; and various grasses including basin wild rye, Leymus cinereus; side-oats grama, Bouteloua curtipendula; little bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium; and Indian rice grass, Achnatherum hymenoides, allow close contemplation of the Wasatch Mountain flora while the mountains themselves fill the distant view, in mid Augus
Basin wild rye, Leymus cinereus, is a featured grass on the rooftop garden.
Long buried, this natural creek was uncovered during the redesign of the Conference Center site. It now brings an authentic remnant of wild Utah to the Salt Lake City streetscape, as switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, leans gracefully over local boulders. The planting uses a mix of Utah species and exotic species, all of which are locally adapted and drought-tolerant.
The futuristic architecture of the Rain Forest House in Hanover, Germany, is matched by the forward-thinking exterior plantings and roof garden designed and executed by Hans Simon, who used his extensive knowledge of grasses and other plants from dry, challenging habitats to construct a planting palette suited to roof conditions.
Pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana 'Patagonia', makes the transition from wall plantings to the Rain Forest House roof.
Simon made his own selection, named 'Hexe', from the low sedge, Carex humilis, which is a Eurasian species occurring naturally in habitats that are open, sunny, dry, and typically alkaline—conditions that match those often encountered on rooftops. In late August, the view from the roof shows continuous clumps of 'Hexe' thriving without regular irrigation
Carpathian moor grass, Sesleria rigida (left foreground), and hair fescue, Festuca filifor-mis (center and right foreground), are other European species naturally adapted to dry, nutrient-poor conditions on the roof. Visible also in the photo are seedheads of the small yellow onion, Allium flavum (at far right), an equally well-adapted species that provided flowering interest earlier in the season.
Precise rows of hair fescue, Festuca filiformis, and other heat- and drought-tolerant perennials grow in gravel within ruin walls at the Landschaftspark in northern Duisburg, Germany. Located in the heart of the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley, this derelict steel mill complex has been recast as a public park. The ordered planting, which is formal in design yet durably sustainable, offers intriguing visual contrast with the successional flora that is gradually re-greening most of the 495-acre (200-ha) site.
Grasses have been and will continue to be essential elements in the flora of the High Line, which is providing a fresh look at the likely origin, evolution, and form of many of our future parks and public gardens. The elevated High Line was originally built between 1929 and 1934 to separate freight railroad lines on New York City's West Side from the increasing pedestrian and vehicular traffic at grade along 10th Avenue. Railroad activity on the High Line ceased in the 1980s, and since that time a cosmopolitan flora including locally native grasses has established itself on the site which, though truncated, still extends for miles (2 km), or twenty-two city blocks, and covers nearly 7 acres (ca. 3 ha) of open space 18 to 30 feet (5.5-9 m) above street level. The not-for-profit group Friends of the High Line successfully promoted a vision of this space as continuous park, and at the time of this writing the High Line is well on its way to becoming one of Manhattan's most exhilarating linear landscapes. The project has enjoyed enormous and diverse support, developed in part by the Friends's use of Joel Sternberg's photos of the spontaneous flora of the High Line, which have resonated with innumerable New Yorkers yearning for a bit of open space free of total control.
A study tour organized by Friends of the High Line in September 2002 reveals an elevated garden of sorts, unlike any other in New York. Offering intimacy within immensity, this unique open space is defined at points by iconic architecture such as the Empire State Building (at distant left), or by smokestacks, apartment buildings, rail yards, or the Hudson River itself.
In a curious update on the prairie, grasses make up the matrix covering much of the High Line. Richard Stalter (2004) listed more than twenty species of grasses, native and nonnative, thriving on the High Line with virtually no irrigation other than what falls from the sky or condenses from the very atmosphere of New York City. The list includes little bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium; purpletop, Tridens flavus; sheep's fescue, Festuca ovina; and purple lovegrass, Eragrostis spectabilis. Flowering companions in this mid-May photo include chives and dwarf bearded iris.
The resilience and adaptability of little bluestem, Schizach-yrium scoparium, are evident in these late-April images of last season's dormant stalks standing while new growth begins between the tracks. The continued presence of this humble grass in the reconstructed High Line will offer a subtle recollection of the rails.
It's fair to say that the High Line isn't so much a disturbed habitat as a created habitat, and the spatial patterns of its flora are evidence of the microclimates that exist even in such a challenging environment, where the depth of growing medium is often a matter of a few inches. Along with grasses, European Potentilla and Linaria species are prevalent in this section. Stalter's study (2004) found regionally native species comprising slightly more than half of the High Line's flora.
A relatively innocuous exotic species introduced from Europe, flannel plant, Ver-bascum thapsus, is tough enough to grow unaided in gravel originally placed on the High Line as ballast for the tracks. The nature of the High Line's evolved flora is, in its tenacity, an optimistic statement about the potential liv-ability offormer industrial corridors.
The lighted top of the Chrysler Building is evident in this late-January night view of the Manhattan skyline from Gantry Plaza State Park. Locally native switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, is nestled between granite blocks and rail remnants that reflect the site's history.
Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City, New York, is a mature example of the use of grasses and sedges in a highly contextual design. This urban waterfront park, designed by Thomas Balsley Associates with Sowinski Sullivan Architects and Lee Weintraub, offers spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline from a site originally built to dispatch railroad cars on barges across the East River. The design is centered around historic former Long Island railroad gantries, which were capable of raising or lowering tracks to meet barges floating on the tidal system that comprises the East River.
Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, and woolgrass, Scirpus cyperinus, are visible in this daytime view.
Known as wild-oat or river-oat, Chasmanthium latifolium is an appropriate choice for the often droughty conditions of the site.
Woolgrass, Scirpus cyperinus, which occurs naturally at sunny wet and dry edges, is another durably authentic component of the planting.
Over much of North America, regularly mowed cool-season turf has been the model for roadside medians and edges, despite the intensive maintenance involved and the accompanying risk of operating heavy machinery on often irregular surfaces amid fast-moving traffic. The Enhancing Delaware Highways project has begun reversing this tradition by revegetating with durable warm-season native grasses that can be indefinitely maintained by mowing only once or twice annually. This early August photo shows Delaware's Route 1 artery after the medians were seeded to switchgrass, Pani-cum virgatum.
Grasses have long been present in the "accidental landscapes" that line our highways and byways. A growing worldwide movement is now recognizing their beauty and utility, and designing them into the landscapes that accompany our necessary journeys. For a number of years I've enjoyed working with colleagues Sue Barton, Gary Schwetz, and the Delaware Department of Transportation on a project titled "Enhancing Delaware Highways." Our goal has been to research, develop, and define a management strategy for Delaware's thousands of acres of roadside rights-of-way that would increase operational safety and efficiency while celebrating, conserving, and enhancing the regional vegetation bordering the state's roads. Although Delaware is a small state, its roads run from the northernmost county, comprised of upland hills with rich organic soils, to the southernmost county which is characterized by sterile quartz sands, especially toward the Atlantic Ocean coast. Over many years of studies, regionally native grasses have proved to be among the most cost-efficient and longest-lived elements in the project's designed and managed roadside landscapes
A seeded mix of Indian grass, Sorghastrum nutans, and switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, is luminous in a Delaware highway infield in the mid-November light. Public feedback has indicated that the tall-grass infield is perceived as attractive as long as a regularly mowed edge is retained as proof that the roadside landscape is in fact being maintained.
Established from seed, Indian grass, Sorghastrum nutans, blooms in early August along a northern Delaware roadside. The color and movement of such grasses contribute subtly but surely to the regional sense and pride of place which are among the project's goals.
In high visibility areas, such as this location at the junction of interstate highways 95 and 495 entering Delaware, grasses have been planted in more formally defined patterns. This late-October photo shows switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, mixed with redbud trees, Cercis canadensis, and fronted by lower sweeps of bluestars Amsonia tabernaemontani and A. hubrichtii.
Panicum virgatum 'Shenandoah', selected for its burgundy late-season color evident in this September photo, fills a narrow median in a northern Delaware suburb.
Grand gestures are often necessary to make an impression on viewers traveling at highway speeds. This late-September view shows a great arc of Panicum virgatum 'Northwind' enclosing a yellow ocean of Soli-dago rugosa 'Fireworks'.
Warm-season grasses Panicum virgatum and Sorghastrum nutans were deliberately seeded onto this site in the sunny space between existing red cedars and groundsel-bush, Baccharis halimifolia. This local shrub makes a fine late-season companion to the grasses, since its white seed-heads remain attractive for more than a month in the autumn landscape.
Seedheads of Baccharis halimifolia in mid October.
This naturally occurring sweep of split bluestem, Andropogon ternarius, along Delaware's Route 1 corridor has been maintained and enhanced by semiannual mowing that allows the grass to continually self-sow.
The Enhancing Delaware Highways ethic is to identify, conserve, and enhance existing habitat associations whenever practical, as in this roadside population of bushy beardgrass, Andropogon glomera-tus, fronting a moist woodland edge comprised mostly of sour gum, Nyssa sylvatica, and sweet pepperbush, Clethra alnifolia.
Both field and forest are components of many roadside landscapes. Appearing uncontrived, a slope bordering an exit ramp is the result of judicious "editing" of existing vegetation. The trees, shrubs, and grasses are almost entirely local native species that established themselves following the initial roadcut for the exit ramp many years ago. The site's soil is thin and rocky, and conditions are dry, especially on the upper portions. In the editing process, seedlings of red maple, Acer rubrum, and sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, were selectively removed, leaving more clearly defined clusters of trees with expanses of Indian grass, Sorghastrum nutans, and red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, in between. The resulting landscape is more ordered and therefore more visually coherent to passing motorists, yet the complement of regional ecotypes is effectively maintained.
An aerial view in early November shows the previously mentioned exit ramp slope (at left middle), along with a grassy infield that is part of the same cloverleaf interchange. For many years the infield was maintained in regularly mowed cool-season turf. As an experiment, the infield was put on a once-annual mowing regimen, with no new planting. Four years later, self-sown native warm-season grasses Schizachyrium sco-parium and Andropogon virginicus are well on their way to dominating the site. Sunny, low-nutrient conditions often prove favorable to the natural regrowth of such grasses, especially if populations on nearby landscapes provide a source of wind-disseminated seed.
This late-October aerial view of State Route 1 in Delaware's southernmost, sandiest county demonstrates the results of switching to once-annual mowing of the central median. A diverse mix of local grass, forb, and shrub species has established itself by the end of the second growing season.
A ground view of the same median shows a seaside goldenrod, Solidago sem-pervirens, blooming with Panicum virgatum in mid October. Coastal switchgrass, P. amarum, and multiple Joe-pye-weeds, Eupatorium species, are also present in the median.
Photographed in late August, Hans Simon's planting of a traffic circle in Mark-theidenfeld, Germany, relies on an eclectic mix of durable species to provide unirrigated multiseason interest.
Native to the Atlas mountains of Morocco, Festuca mairei is a relatively large fescue grass that is well-suited to sunny, dry conditions.
The island planting also includes Eragrostis chloromelas, an exceptionally drought-tolerant blue lovegrass from southern Africa which produces a profusion of fine inflorescences in summer.
Although barely discernable amid similarly colored swamp milkweed, Ascle-pias incarnata, red-top panic grass, Panicum rigidulum, makes up a significant portion of this plant association in a wet swale beside U.S. Route 301 in Maryland, the Eastern Shoreway. Other companions include blue vervain, Verbena hastata, and goldenrods, Solidago species. With a mission similar to that of the Enhancing Delaware Highways project, Maryland's State Highway Administration and the Adkins Arboretum are working together to conserve and enhance the Maryland flora along the state's roadside rights-of-way.
The use of grasses and sedges in the restoration and enhancement of regional landscapes extends far beyond the roadside, as evidenced by this dune stabilization project in Wellington, New Zealand. The bright orange foliage belongs to pingao, Desmos-choenus spiralis, a New Zealand native sedge that is a natural component of dune vegetation. Many New Zealand dune systems were damaged by poor farming practices, and early twentieth-century attempts to stabilize them typically made use of the exotic marram grass, Ammophila arenaria, which is native to Europe and Africa. In addition to its beautiful color, Desmoschoenus is preferable because it creates smooth, stable fore dunes as opposed to the steep, blowout-prone dunes formed by Ammophila.
Viewed in early April from a bench under a coast live oak, Quercus agrifo-lia, the meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is ablaze with California poppies, Eschscholzia californica, flowering within a matrix of native grasses.
Though much of my understanding of grasses and their potential in managed landscapes has come from the close and repeated observation of regional habitats, I owe a considerable debt to the many public gardens worldwide that identify and display the diversity of grasses. In all the years I've studied grasses, one place that has expanded my knowledge and provided inspiration with each visit is the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden in Southern California (SBBG), and it is a superb example of a public institution with an inspired, regional focus. SBBG isn't all about grasses—in my opinion, no great garden is—but it does integrate grasses throughout its acres, often in association with California species that might be natural companions in native habitats, and typically in association with plants and other landscape elements that deserve repetition in any garden seeking to represent the regional beauty of Southern California.
SBBG owes its grassy subtext in many ways to the influence of Carol Bornstein, who has been a consistent voice for the merits of California grasses. Carol came to California from Detroit, Michigan, in the early 1980s and found that her Midwestern awareness of grasses (Michigan is one of the original Prairie states) pointed toward an exploration of California's grasses as a way of developing a point of reference in her newly adopted flora. She envisioned the grasses as a group that could help extend the garden's interest throughout the year.
As we all grow in our awareness of grasses' beauty and utility, I hope there will be more places like SBBG that offer inspired regional examples of grasses in livable landscapes.
Poppies are nestled among the new blue foliage of wild rye, Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince', also in early April.
Narrow spikes of deergrass, Muhlenbergia rigens, are backed by California poppies in early April.
Translucent inflorescences of purple needle grass, Nassella pulchra, glow against the shadow of a monumental boulder at the edge of the meadow in early April.
Grasses provide continuing interest in the meadow landscape long after the poppies have faded. Blue hues of wild rye meet the mountain colors during a late afternoon at the end of June.
The rounded form of spiny rush, Juncus acutus subsp. leopoldii, contrasts with local boulders near the garden entrance in late June.
Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince' blooms in the meadow in late June.
Deergrass, Muhlenbergia rigens, is backed by the red berries of Nevin's barberry, Mahonia nevinii, in late June.
The desert landscape at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden features Shaw's agave, Agave shawii (foreground), with desert needle grass, Achnatherum speciosum (beyond).
In silhouette, an extended branch of palo verde, Cercidium floridum, frames drying flower stalks of purple three-awn, Aristida purpurea, in late afternoon.
