It's Not Work, It's Gardening!: grasses

Showing posts with label grasses. Show all posts

Showing posts with label grasses. Show all posts

Pennisetum: Vertigo vs Princess

>> Thursday, October 31, 2019 – foliage, grasses

A few years ago I grew Pennisetum Vertigo (cultivar name 'Tift 8'), a large, purple grass with wide leaves. I loved this grass, but alas, I did not overwinter it successfully one year -- I think it dried out too much in the garage. So I wasn't able to grow it last year, and I missed it!

The nurseries around me all seem to carry only Pennisetum Princess now (shown above), which is labeled as smaller than Vertigo, but supposedly similar in color. I finally gave in this year and bought a couple, thinking they'd be a replacement for Vertigo -- not exactly the same maybe, but better than nothing.

Bargain!

>> Monday, July 30, 2018 – grasses

One of the best things about gardening in the heat of the summer is plant sales. Unlike the spring (and early fall to a lesser extent) the nurseries and garden centers around here become almost empty in the middle of summer. Much fewer visitors, smaller staff, some empty tables. Only those who really love plants (or do plants for a living) are shopping -- which I love.

Therefore surprise sales and pretty healthy plants on clearance. I've found some great bargains in the middle of summer over the years! That's what happened at the orange big box store when I went to pick up some mosquito dunks the other day: I found these.

WWTT - Grass

>> Tuesday, October 11, 2016 – grasses, pruning

My friend Loree over at Danger Garden does a lot of walking, driving, traveling. Well, a lot compared to me. During these excursions she keeps a look out for interesting gardens and landscapes. Some are noteworthy because they are cool or beautiful, but others fall into the "what were they thinking?" category.

These Miscanthus planted near intersections near my house fit into that WWTT bucket. Sure Miscanthus is a fairly wide grass, graceful and arching. Not appropriate for this space? Just prune them!

One last look: castor beans

>> Thursday, November 19, 2015 – bananas, canna, castor bean, color, grasses, papyrus

With the first hard freeze expected Saturday evening, I thought give you one last look at the stars of my late-season garden: the castor beans (Ricinus communis).

Also papyrus and a little canna, because they also impressed me so much this year. I'm glad that I was able to enjoy them until almost the end of November (an extra three or four weeks this year), but I'll miss them for the next nine months or so -- the castor beans won't be impressive until late July at the earliest.

Autumn randomness

>> Tuesday, October 27, 2015 – autumn, color, grasses

Chipmunk, Vertigo, Milkweed Bugs, and more

>> Friday, September 11, 2015 – animals, butterflies, grasses, insects

Random things from around the garden, starting with milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus), not yet mature (nymphs):

These are on the swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) in the prairie beds. They are camera shy, moving to the other side of the pods when I got too close.

Briefly, what I love about late summer

>> Tuesday, September 1, 2015 – bananas, canna, castor bean, elephant ears, grasses

This might be my favorite time of the year in the garden!

I don't have time to say much, but here are some of the reasons why this is so...

Hide those feet! (more new plants)

>> Tuesday, August 25, 2015 – foliage, grasses, planting

Grasses are one of my favorite plants to grow, and one of my favorites of the last few years has been "Vertigo" fountain grass (Pennisetum purpureum 'Tift 8'). I have it in several places in the ground, and in a pot where the walkway meets the street. Although the pot gives it some extra height and makes it that much more impressive, now that the grass has reached its full height it's starting to look a little ragged around its feet.

It probably doesn't help that it got overly dry a few weeks ago when I was gone for the weekend, but the lower part of this plant is not too attractive: you see lots of stem and brown leaves.

Fuzzy

>> Monday, July 20, 2015 – bees, caterpillar, grasses

A bit how I feel this Monday morning, but more about noticing the fuzziness in the garden.

The Pennisetum are all coming into their own, their inflorescences making the garden such a fun place.

Look back: Summer 2010

>> Monday, January 5, 2015 – grasses

I've got several interesting posts planned for this week, but since I've got a bit of a cold and a headache, I'm taking the easy approach today: a look back at summer 2010.

That was the year I started this blog, and this post shows what the garden was like in July of that year. One of the best things about documenting the garden's progress is looking back every once in a while, and I find it especially enjoyable on cold winter days to see some summer greenery.

Just a second or two...

>> Wednesday, November 12, 2014 – autumn, color, grasses, japanese maple

I've been quite busy recently, not only preparing for the cold air that's now here and is resulting in low temperatures of 25ºF (-4ºC) or less every night this week, but with some work deadlines. So I haven't had much time to think about putting together a post. I did see a few things yesterday that stood out for me though, enough so that I took a couple of minutes off from moving pots and digging up plants to capture some images.

The mixture of grasses in the prairie bed is quite nice right now, the last daylight before everything gets fried by cold. The tall grey grass is Pennisetum 'Vertigo', already sapped of color by earlier freezes. The golden grass in front is Panicum 'Heavy Metal', somehow staying upright this year. To the left is the smaller Pennisetum alopecuroides, a seedling from one of my 'Hameln'. To the far left looking a bit reddish is a Miscanthus, with the background greens and whites provided by various bamboos.

Just looking

>> Friday, September 19, 2014 – bamboo, castor bean, grasses

I thought I'd end the week with a few views that I particularly like in the garden right now.

The southeast corner of the house is really coming together, even though I need to remove the climbing rose that is hidden from view by the papyrus in this shot. What would I do without grasses?

Portland: Rhone Street Gardens

>> Wednesday, August 20, 2014 – blooms, foliage, grasses, travel

Back to Portland, to the photos from the Garden Bloggers Fling in July. If you've been reading regularly you may remember that Saturday of the Fling weekend started with the Ernst and Fuller gardens. Next up on this rainy morning was Rhone Street Gardens, the small city garden of Scott Weber.

Scott's blog is one of those that I started reading just after I started blogging if I remember correctly, so I've seen hundreds of photos of his garden already. That just made me even more eager and excited to see it in person!

Thankful for the rain, but...

>> Friday, August 8, 2014 – damage, grasses, water

After what I believe to be about 3/4" (2 cm) rain total over the past two months or so, we finally got a good soaking here in the St. Louis area yesterday. I'm so thankful for the rain...

...but it's not all good news. Heavy downpours and upright ornamental grasses, well, they just don't go together. I had been enjoying the picturesque verticality of my grasses up until yesterday, and now that's gone.

Portland: Westwind Farm Studio

>> Wednesday, July 23, 2014 – blooms, grasses, travel

The last stop of the first day of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland was another private garden: Westwind Farm Studio. The name is confusing because it's not a farm and I'm not sure what the "studio" designation is for -- I may have missed the explanation when we arrived. (I did find out later that the property was formerly a sheep farm, so that's part of the answer... and their website explains that they have a recording studio too.)

Its name though was of no consequence, because this was one of my favorite stops of the entire trip, something like what I envision my dream garden to be.Views, grasses, privacy, wildlife, sculpture -- the only thing they didn't have was bamboo, otherwise this might have been designed specifically for me!

A quick fix

>> Monday, June 9, 2014 – comparison, grasses

I don't have time to say much today, which is sometimes how things go in the garden: you don't have time to do very much but need to make it look like you did.

Here's an example: the bed next to the driveway and the front walk, well, it just looks sad.

Grasses surprise

>> Wednesday, April 9, 2014 – cleanup, grasses, toads

More grasses to cut, this time in front of the house, closest to the porch. Mexican feather grass so lovely even when quite possibly completely dead -- they don't reliably overwinter for me even in normal winters.

These supposedly do better when not sheared, so I pull out any loose blades and leave the rest long. Since I like the look of even the brown blades of this grass, I don't mind this. It will be a bit of a surprise if these actually green back up though, but they're usually slow to get going so maybe there's still a chance.

Grasses, so easy

>> Friday, April 4, 2014 – grasses

Grasses are one of my favorite plants to overwinter, as they're so simple and rewarding. They need minimal care, are tolerant of periods of neglect, and well, they're grasses -- so essential in any garden! This winter I made the typical Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' (purple fountain grass) divisions to grow indoors, but also a couple of experimental "Vertigo" Pennisetum.

Besides burning where the leaf tips touched the lights, every single one of these divisions has made it through the cold, dark tunnel that is winter and come out the other side into the light that is spring.

Winter lawn, far below

>> Monday, December 30, 2013 – grasses, lawn

Yesterday I took my nephew to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial here in St. Louis, home of the Gateway Arch, or as it's more commonly called, "The Arch". It has been a few years since I've done this, so was looking forward to having a look around.

The 4-minute ride up in the small, rotating tram cars is no thrill ride but part of the experience, and at 630 ft. (192m) tall you get a great view from the top.

An update on the grasses

>> Monday, December 16, 2013 – grasses, overwintering, propagation

It's been a week since I potted the divisions of Pennisetum 'Vertigo' and Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' (purple fountain grass) and put them under the lights of my growing table.

You may remember that I said that this year I took a compromise approach to overwintering these: I didn't take the divisions immediately (in late November for instance), but I didn't wait months (until early February like I did last year). Taking the divisions too early leaves me with plants that are just crammed into their pots and dying to get outside by spring, while taking them too late left me with dead divisions. This year things are looking good though.

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