About- Purple Fountain Grass

I'am in zone 4a. I bought these and have 4 of them. Apparently they will not take the winter here.Can anyone tell me, if I were to bring them in for the winter will they just continue to grow and hold over till spring?
Blessings, Ingrid

Yes - Please tell me how to bring these in and keep them going till next spring! Thanks....

Kim

Kim, I hope someone will respond for this. All I'am going to do is bring them in and water accordingly/mist them too. See how they will manage. I expect that maybe some will die back and I'll cut them to see how it will continue to grow.
Maybe, someonelse will let us know on how to go about it.

Blessings, Ingrid

I live in Zone 7b and they won't survive here either. I personally haven't tried overwintering them but my manager has and he said that no matter what he does they always die.

Good luck though! Maybe it's just him! LOL

NcGardenaddict,

Well, I hope that we can show him it can be done. Or, we will just be on the list of ones who couldn't keep them alive. Gon'a try real hard.

Best wishes, Ingrid

I wish you luck! Purple fountain grass is one of my favorite grasses.. Most grasses are so tough it seems a shame this one is being such a baby!! Especially when keeping one over the winter means you don't have to buy new ones in the Spring!

OK folks, I googled this to see if I could find any info online. This post was at www.civicgardencenter.org:
(snip)
"All the references I have checked suggest that seed collecting for purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum') is not advised, since it is propagated by division instead. However, you may be able to multiply this African native by overwintering indoors and division, as described below:

If your grass is growing in a movable container now, you can try cutting the grass back, then moving the container to a protected area that stays above freezing all winter, such as heated garage. An old-fashioned root cellar or cold basement room would be fine, too. Water before putting it away and again when it shows signs of life in the spring.

If you have a cool cool room with lots of sunny windows, you could try overwintering the purple fountain grass like a houseplant. I have such a room and overwinter many annuals in it. Be careful to watch for insects and treat them with an insecticidal soap spray.

If your grass is growing in the ground, pot up some divisions and follow the same treatment."
(snip)

Kbads, we have hope now. Thanks for all research and info.
Blessings, Ingrid

I have purple fountain grass wintering over quite successfully in a cool basement room with florescent lights running 14 - 16 hour day. They are still blooming somewhat. The temperatures in this room average between
55 - 65 fahrenheit. The plants are lightly watered twice a week.

I tried to move them into a heated garage before, made sure they stayed moist (not overwatered) and they never came back. It would be best to treat it as an annual.

I pot mine up & trim back. Leave outside as long as I dare,in the fall. Then bring into greenhouse that ranges from 50 on coldest nights,to 90 on suuny days.If I'm home, I ventilate on sunny days. Water sparingly! Every one lived this year. Not always this lucky! A frostfree porch or
cool room with south window should work.

:( I want a greenhouse. Waaaaaa~! I am so jealous!

Well, it worked!! Brought mine in the fall and kept watering them inside and cut them down..I guess it was after Christmas I started to feed them and now...all 3 are in great shape and ready to go out after Mothers Day..

Ingrid

Way to go, Ingrid!
:) Donna

Ingrid...thanks for the update on overwintering these beautiful grasses. I just (yesterday) bought a pot of the purple fountain grass...taking for granted that it was hardy in my zone 4. Spent the $10.00 for the medium sized pot, THEN when I got home I read the tag. Uh oh...:-D

So I was really happy to see that you'd been successful with your overwintering.

~julie~

Funny I started mine form seeds last year zone 7a and they came back to life this year. Bigger and better. Just lucky I guess.

TARogers5, I have a brother TA Rogers. He lives in Arizona. Just noticed your user name and thought it was kind of neat.

Thanks and in the military that was my nick name TAR
LOL Theodore Alan Rogers

That's good to know!!! I too succumbed to the lures of this tender beauty last year - two pots for $5 each. Never read the tag, so it wasn't until they didn't come back this spring I started looking at the info for them, and realized they weren't hardy.

This year I put a hardier ornamental grass in the place where one was, and bought a smaller replacement pot of 'Rubrum' for the other spot. (For $3.50, I *can* think of it as an annual if it doesn't make it.) Come fall, I'll pot it up and move it to the greenhouse with the philosophy of "if it makes it great, if not - oh well!"

This message was edited Sep 5, 2005 7:52 PM

There are 2 clumps of the Purple Fountain Grass that survive here in Zone 8b. My regret is that after winter when they seem to die, they are so long in coming back the next season.
By fall, though, they look nice. Pic of one here taken in evening and color is looking light.
farizona