Grass and Bamboo: Question about Maiden Grass descriptors, 4 by DonnaMack

DonnaMack wrote:
The trick with bare root perennials (and I know, because I botched a couple of alchemilla mollis from Hallson) is to get them into the ground really fast. I figured it out with the geranium striatum. Bare root perennials can look really weird, and the alchemilla was unrecognizable to me, so like a dummy I planted one of them upside down.

I agree with you about 'Autumn Anthem'. I don't think it's that pretty. I think it's an attempt by somebody to make money by patenting a plant. Honestly, I think some "introductions" are pure nonsense.

Calamagrostis acutifolia 'Karl Foerster' is an absolutely wonderful grass. It is one of the first to bloom. And it doesn't flop - it stays wonderfully upright. And the flowers are gorgeous.

In the first pic, it is in bloom on the left. The plant on the right is chasmanthium latifolium, the native prairie dropseed, which you can grow in sun or shade, but I am finding that it seeds a lot in shade (behind them is silberfeder).

In the second and third pics, taken a year apart, is one of my favorite uses for it. It is a soft grass and I would use it to hide the ugly stems of the otherwise beautiful orienpet lily 'Silk Road'. In 'Morning Light' they would be sliced.

And in the fall, look how upright! This low maintenance and early bloom combined with beauty is WHY it has ended up on municipal sites. That's also why it was a Perennial Plant of the year ages ago. But I could no longer resist, and I highly recommend it.

They had tons of both bluestem, little and big, in my former community. It's heavily promoted by native growers, and there was tons of it, but I felt it was just OK, particularly in masses, but it never captured my imagination, and I never bought one.

And you are right about going to garden centers. I must have bought 30 grasses at Milaegers over the years. I would wait until fall when they needed to get rid of them. It's a myth that you can't plant grasses in the fall - you just have to water them properly. I lived 45 miles from them so it was a 90 mile round trip that I must have made 200 times. It was very worthwhile and the grasses are bigger. I order mine now from Romence because they are larger than most and the flat $9.95 shipping for all the plants you order in a season makes it cheaper than driving.