Growing up, the word “grass” meant two things, either the thing you begrudgingly mowed each week, or the thing you found in your brother’s drawer that he told you was oregano. Today, it can also refer to a plant in your landscape that is about to bloom right now.
For those of you young enough not to remember a day without Apple computers, you probably don’t remember a day without ornamental grasses as an option for the landscape. Not too long ago, at least from my perspective, you were lucky to find any ornamental grasses in garden centers.
If you were to find any, it was probably a few pots of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus.’ I remember my not-so-radical mom planting one in the backyard in the early 70s. It was Maidenhair grass she said, and it had it’s own little spot. For her, it was something new and exciting. For me, it was just another bed to edge.
It would take another twenty-some years before I finally came to appreciate what she planted. I was working at Pepsico’s World Headquarters helping to maintain the seventy-two acre sculpture garden that was their campus. Throughout the grounds were a variety of gardens laid out in the early 1980s by Russell Page, a prominent garden designer from England.
My responsibilities included several large beds he had carved out of the lawn. In those beds he planted just grasses – something that was virtually unheard of in America then. Of course, my mom’s grass was there, but so were many I had never heard of like the aptly named Miscanthus ‘Giganteus’ capable of growing 10 feet or more in a single season.
One of my favorites was an early bloomer about 4-5 feet tall that bears the name of the grandfather of the movement that would bring ornamental grasses to America. Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’’ commemorates the German nurseryman Karl Foerster (1874-1970) who early in his career was part of a growing garden aesthetic heavily influenced by the writings of the great Irish gardener William Robinson.
His book The Wild Garden, published in 1870, influenced a whole generation of gardeners who rejected the formal bedding schemes of the Victorian era, and favored a more naturalistic approach to garden design.
Towards that end, perennial plants were utilized and that’s what Foerster grew in his nursery beds. He also grew many ornamental grasses for they helped to achieve what he called Durchgebluht, meaning “bloom throughout the year” according to Roger Grounds in The Plantfinder’s Guide to Ornamental Grasses. Foerster knew that grasses, with their long lasting blooms, were the key to achieving that.
Foerster, in turn, had a profound influence on Wolfgang Oehme, a German trained horticulturist and landscape architect, who emigrated to America in the 50s. Foerster’s ideas of year long bloom and naturalistic plantings came with him. Oehme had trouble finding the perennials and grasses he needed for his designs though, and in 1964 joined forces with Kurt Bluemel, a fellow German emigre, to start a company to provide them.
Oehme sold his shares in the company two years later to concentrate on designing landscapes, but their separate paths still shared a common goal: to introduce ornamental grasses into American landscapes. Fifty years later, one would have to call their effort a success. Kurt Bluemel provided America with grasses, and Wolfgang Oehme’s designs with James van Sweden showed America what to do with them.
Grasses are here to stay, and they are perfect for the low maintenance landscapes people need these days. They are relatively pest free, and most are adaptable to all kinds of conditions. The choices have expanded greatly since the day my mother planted her Maidenhair grass, and if you include the sedges, the choices are even greater. If you don’t have any in your garden, it’s time you do.
Next week: the dirty, old Gardener’s top 10.5 grasses for our area.
