Guide to gardening with ornamental grass

12 grasses to try
On the shorter side:
1. Festuca glauca (blue fescue) -- Fine blades in dense tufts of up to 30 centimetres tall produce mauve inflorescences. Clump forming.

2. Hordeum jubatum (foxtail barley) -- Shimmering pinky-purple plumes reach about 45 centimetres tall. Clump forming.

3. Pennisetum alopercuroides 'Hameln' (fountain grass) -- Downy white flower spikes turn fawn in the fall and grow up to 60 centimetres tall. Clump forming.

Colourful:
4. Carex elata 'Aurea' -- Narrow, arching leaves, lemon-lime in colour, grow in thick tufts up to 60 centimetres tall. Clump forming.

5. Chasmanthium latifolium (spangle grass) -- This green grass grows up to 1.2 metres tall and matures to a bright copper, but it is also chosen for its distinctive oatlike flowers. Clump forming.

6. Panicum virgatum 'Huron Solstice' -- The light green leaves of this cultivar from Canadian hybridizer Martin Quinn are striped with red; pink inflorescences, reaching 1.2 metres tall, dance in a breeze. Clump forming.

Truly tall:
7. Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem, turkey foot) -- This grass grows up to 2 metres tall, with blue-green leaves and large purple inflorescences shaped like birds' feet. Clump forming.

8. Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' (feather reed grass) -- This reaches up to 75 centimetres tall, with pink inflorescences that almost double that height. Clump forming.

9. Panicum virgatum (switchgrass) -- The flat green leaves and delicate flower spikes grow up to 2.4 metres tall. Clump forming.

Middle-of-the-border:
10. Hystrix patula (bottlebrush) -- Arching green stems grow up to 90 centimetres tall. Clump forming.

11. Sorghastrum nutans (Indian grass) -- The cultivar 'Sioux Blue' has blue-green blades that age to gold. Deep yellow flower tassels mature to bronze. This grass grows up to 90 centimetres tall. Clump forming.

12. Sporobolus heterolepis (Prairie dropseed) -- A mist of fragrant, pale pink flowers float about 60 centimetres in the air, above green leaves that turn gold. Clump forming.

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