Ornamental Grasses

Luqi Li Author

08/04/2020 Added

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Kim Todd - Ornamental Grasses

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[00:00:01.563](upbeat music)
[00:00:11.660]Beautiful is turf grasses,
[00:00:13.460]ornamental grasses also have a great place in the landscape.
[00:00:17.380]You have to be cautious about which ones you choose
[00:00:20.360]and how you choose to use them
[00:00:22.090]because if it's done incorrectly,
[00:00:24.440]they are going to become part of the landscape
[00:00:26.833]that you do not want.
[00:00:29.740]If you like turf,
[00:00:30.970]you probably at least pay a little bit
[00:00:33.490]of attention to ornamental grasses.
[00:00:36.000]Whether you are managing them or designing with them
[00:00:39.160]or you simply like the way they look.
[00:00:41.390]And this is a little bit of a tongue in cheek for a start,
[00:00:44.100]because of course, bamboo is a grass.
[00:00:46.880]This beautiful yellow bamboo is not one you're gonna see
[00:00:49.345]actually growing in most places in the central part
[00:00:53.690]of the United States,
[00:00:54.700]but you certainly might see it in a container.
[00:00:57.360]So let's take a look at what's to like,
[00:01:00.390]and what's not to like about ornamental grasses.
[00:01:04.160]What's not to like, well, there's no mowing,
[00:01:07.610]so to speak, there's no real regular fertilizing,
[00:01:11.410]no or little insect or pest control, except of course
[00:01:14.900]for things like pesky grasshoppers and
[00:01:17.288]no thing, but enjoyment except there is of course,
[00:01:22.170]no such thing as perfect.
[00:01:24.490]This is a beautiful little combination of some
[00:01:26.760]of the native grasses with a little bit of extra
[00:01:29.250]thrown in for good measure.
[00:01:31.100]A little messy, a little fuzzy and for a lot of people,
[00:01:33.988]that's not exactly what they really like.
[00:01:37.200]So, let's start with intent and choice.
[00:01:40.330]What do we use ornamental grasses for,
[00:01:42.790]transitions, accents or specimens, seasonal interest
[00:01:46.862]and to direct movement.
[00:01:48.900]They are not a substitute for shrubs
[00:01:50.970]or actual turf grass, typically.
[00:01:53.310]And we choose by the habit of the grass,
[00:01:55.916]it's form the texture and the movement,
[00:01:59.260]the color and the color change,
[00:02:00.710]and of course your ability to manage it.
[00:02:03.211]So as a transition, the grasses,
[00:02:06.740]especially some of the bigger ones can really
[00:02:08.847]sort of bridge that gap between a very,
[00:02:11.630]very low ground cover or actual turf
[00:02:15.040]and larger shrubs and trees that can help soften boulders,
[00:02:19.100]they can form an accent against something that is
[00:02:23.210]of a contrast in color or size or scale.
[00:02:27.300]This is another example of a transition,
[00:02:30.050]it's maybe a little bit more abrupt
[00:02:32.000]because of course in its winter color
[00:02:35.392]this particular grass is very, very dramatic
[00:02:39.640]and very, very blonde.
[00:02:42.140]So it's maybe not quite as good a transition
[00:02:44.479]to the evergreens behind it with the exception
[00:02:48.310]of perhaps in scale.
[00:02:50.661]If you look at this wall, a couple of grasses,
[00:02:54.350]this is probably Karl Foerster feather reed grass,
[00:02:57.210]are helping to accentuate curve as well as give
[00:03:00.888]a little verticality, serve as a transition
[00:03:04.960]to the wall behind and as a foil to the Rudbeckia
[00:03:09.700]that is in the foreground.
[00:03:11.720]And of course as an accent,
[00:03:13.902]nothing like one of the great big giant Ravenna grasses
[00:03:17.763]that stands almost as tall as the tree
[00:03:21.730]in this little parking lot island.
[00:03:24.321]Then of course, there's that seasonal beauty of the grasses,
[00:03:27.700]especially if they're back lit,
[00:03:29.330]if they're in full seed head,
[00:03:30.814]if the light is right, if moisture is hanging onto them.
[00:03:36.500]Just really a beautiful thing in the landscape to be able
[00:03:39.330]to use for a slightly different kind of appearance
[00:03:44.360]than a typical shrub or small tree.
[00:03:49.100]Grasses can also be one of the materials that we use
[00:03:51.934]to suggest movement,
[00:03:54.580]especially if they're used in a simple large band or mass
[00:03:58.040]and they just follow the curve of a walk
[00:03:59.990]or the curve of light poles.
[00:04:02.090]They can be very uniform depending on the cultivars selected
[00:04:07.780]or the species selected and really can help
[00:04:11.060]to direct traffic and give that visual flow
[00:04:14.170]if not the physical flow.
[00:04:16.093]This next series is actually a very, very heavy grass scape.
[00:04:21.240]I guess that's about all, you can really call it.
[00:04:23.930]And even on the images,
[00:04:26.050]it appears as though it is moving.
[00:04:28.410]To a lot of people this is a little bit of overkill,
[00:04:31.170]and that is one of the things I think is kind of interesting
[00:04:33.600]about grasses in the landscape right now.
[00:04:37.490]They were extremely wildly popular in very,
[00:04:41.690]very large quantities for a number of years,
[00:04:44.140]and it seems like they've fallen a bit out of favor,
[00:04:47.620]or at least maybe they're being used a little bit
[00:04:50.620]more selectively than they were in the past.
[00:04:53.780]So once you figured out what your intent is
[00:04:56.560]for wanting to use the grasses,
[00:04:58.810]then we start looking at just exactly how do you choose?
[00:05:03.950]How do you choose the grasses?
[00:05:05.420]And we start with habit and you have a couple choices
[00:05:09.410]to begin with either annual or perennial.
[00:05:13.420]Annual grasses have their place in many instances,
[00:05:17.560]especially in public landscapes and private landscapes,
[00:05:22.130]because they go from zero to beautiful in a season,
[00:05:25.840]you can change your mind,
[00:05:27.010]you can change the variety.
[00:05:29.160]You have not really committed a huge amount of budget,
[00:05:35.370]although you can, of course,
[00:05:36.810]some of the grasses can be $20 or $25 per gallon
[00:05:40.190]if you're not really careful.
[00:05:41.910]But they do give you color that is not necessarily available
[00:05:45.510]in some of the perennial grasses.
[00:05:48.370]And of course grasses can become a really
[00:05:51.160]a fabulous vertical point in any container large
[00:05:55.180]or small, in some instances depending on the grasses
[00:05:58.710]that you've chosen, they also will over winter
[00:06:01.560]in a large container and in the right conditions.
[00:06:06.100]And again, they provide that difference
[00:06:07.860]in texture and form that is certainly
[00:06:10.922]can be complimentary to other plant material.
[00:06:14.661]They come in all sorts of varieties of colors and forms,
[00:06:19.250]this is really the Ruby Grass behind that Salvia
[00:06:23.670]is just this fluffy sort of pink thing you kind
[00:06:27.630]of want to walk up to and pet it
[00:06:29.750]as opposed to simply looking at it.
[00:06:31.910]It looks like cotton candy,
[00:06:33.290]or it looks like it belongs in a carnival
[00:06:36.510]sort of an atmosphere.
[00:06:38.470]So then we also look at the perennial grasses,
[00:06:42.080]so annual or perennial, we start with that.
[00:06:45.150]And that can be really a game changer
[00:06:49.250]depending on the situation you're in
[00:06:51.270]or if you really do want to change that landscape,
[00:06:54.160]you don't want to commit to a particular grass
[00:06:56.970]that is perennial.
[00:06:58.540]And of course you can use the perennial grasses
[00:07:01.007]and the annual grasses together, too.
[00:07:03.340]So, one of the ornamental millets,
[00:07:06.410]this is probably Jade Princess showing to some advantage
[00:07:10.950]against the very, very perennial,
[00:07:13.600]very vertical Northwind Switch Grass.
[00:07:16.740]So you start with the habit is it annual or perennial?
[00:07:20.516]And then you think in terms of what is its form
[00:07:24.370]and how is it going to move or spread,
[00:07:27.020]or is it going to stay tidily in place where you want it
[00:07:31.271]and just slowly increase in girth?
[00:07:34.890]And those are really important considerations,
[00:07:37.360]especially depending on your landscape situation
[00:07:41.510]and your ability to manage grasses that may
[00:07:44.350]or may not want to stay put.
[00:07:46.590]I think this is just really interesting to look at.
[00:07:49.490]This no longer exists, but this is some,
[00:07:54.160]a couple of extremely vertical selections
[00:07:58.160]of Little Bluestem, almost as dense as a broom,
[00:08:02.500]standing up all by themselves.
[00:08:04.250]So again, you can get the really vertical columns
[00:08:07.400]of grass that are almost architectural.
[00:08:10.090]And then you look at the contrast in this image
[00:08:12.880]to the Little Buddha Lua in front of it
[00:08:16.560]with almost a curly Q kind of an appearance.
[00:08:19.600]So the grasses used together can also give you those
[00:08:22.800]differences in texture and form.
[00:08:26.090]You look at sort of the,
[00:08:27.696]almost the filigree or the translucent appearance
[00:08:31.194]of the Sporobolus Prairie Dropseed
[00:08:34.660]in the foreground with the Day Lily
[00:08:36.480]in between there's Porcupine Grass in the corner,
[00:08:39.230]which is one of the miscanthuses.
[00:08:41.550]And again, Karl Foerster, which is one of those very early
[00:08:45.205]and so far, fingers crossed, sterile,
[00:08:49.309]flowering grasses that is used extensively
[00:08:52.200]and sometimes not exactly used well.
[00:08:55.200]So if you look at it here in a clump,
[00:08:57.560]the clump forms of mass,
[00:08:59.190]so it's really sort of a band of horizontal.
[00:09:01.794]It's vertical in stature,
[00:09:04.059]but it is horizontal in terms of its contribution
[00:09:07.700]to the landscape.
[00:09:08.855]And then you look at how it has been used
[00:09:11.040]as a parking lot screen.
[00:09:13.727]This is not exactly effective because your eye tends
[00:09:17.540]to move to every single one of those grasses.
[00:09:19.980]Now, is it possible to get from the parking lot
[00:09:22.310]to the sidewalk by walking through it?
[00:09:24.800]Absolutely, but this is probably not
[00:09:27.330]what the design intent was.
[00:09:29.380]And it is a good example of if you have grasses that are
[00:09:33.250]clump formers as ornamentals,
[00:09:35.780]the spacing is going to be critical if you want them
[00:09:38.040]to read as a mass.
[00:09:40.270]Of course, grasses are fabulous for the texture,
[00:09:43.020]which I've already mentioned a couple of times,
[00:09:44.870]and for the movement.
[00:09:46.670]Just the slightest wind can really cause that sort of
[00:09:49.533]sea of grass from waving and moving in the wind
[00:09:54.770]or in the air.
[00:09:57.230]And of course they also attract all sorts
[00:09:59.470]of interesting critters and creatures,
[00:10:01.320]which adds an additional layer of movement
[00:10:03.696]to the entire landscape.
[00:10:05.760]There's really nothing else that moves
[00:10:08.460]the way the grasses do.
[00:10:10.750]You can end up with extremely fine small texture.
[00:10:14.700]This is a little tiny, tiny, tiny, little love grass
[00:10:19.130]that is sort of this pink powder puff.
[00:10:21.980]Really pretty dramatic, really small and a little hard,
[00:10:25.870]as you can tell, to be able to keep the weeds out of it.
[00:10:28.900]And then of course that change over the seasons.
[00:10:32.341]That's both a positive and a negative.
[00:10:34.922]If you look at a very late fall appearance
[00:10:40.040]in this particular situation,
[00:10:41.796]it is the rounded mounded wispy sort of appearance
[00:10:45.872]of the clumps of one of the pennisetums
[00:10:49.561]that really stand out in the rest of the shrubs
[00:10:52.710]and the tree landscape in this particular island.
[00:10:56.814]So, here's the deal on using the grasses though,
[00:11:00.630]you can't just let it be, let it be.
[00:11:04.260]You've got those formative years when you have
[00:11:07.160]to get those grasses established
[00:11:09.630]and depending on how many you want
[00:11:11.850]and where that goes back to intent and what your budget is.
[00:11:15.790]That can be a pretty pricey little bit of an experience.
[00:11:19.410]Weed control can also be tricky,
[00:11:21.990]not just from the start to get them established,
[00:11:25.300]but later in their lives.
[00:11:27.240]You've got to do spring or fall cut back and clean up.
[00:11:30.020]And at that point, whatever you were trying to screen
[00:11:32.950]or accentuate or use as a specimen becomes very bare
[00:11:37.960]and open.
[00:11:39.510]Many of them need division and restoration of some sort.
[00:11:43.530]They become open in the center,
[00:11:45.160]they really die out in the middle.
[00:11:47.100]Some are so big and heavy and floppy,
[00:11:49.350]especially some of the newer selections that you need
[00:11:52.880]to stake them or cage them or corral them,
[00:11:55.170]or keep them from spreading or flopping all over the place
[00:11:58.329]because if they're going to do that
[00:12:00.670]and there just isn't room for them,
[00:12:02.230]you're gonna have to cut them back
[00:12:03.480]and then what's the point?
[00:12:05.290]And if you look at what has to happen
[00:12:07.200]or how the grasses do change over time,
[00:12:09.932]this may be what it looks like going
[00:12:12.230]in at the absolute appropriate spacing
[00:12:14.805]and a year or two later this is what you have
[00:12:18.230]in terms of the beauty and again,
[00:12:20.140]the movement of those grasses in the landscape.
[00:12:23.440]But, we also have issues with how do you control the weeds
[00:12:27.903]in a landscape that has a lot of ornamental grasses
[00:12:33.427]without getting rid of the ornamental grasses?
[00:12:37.200]This is just a single season of skipped or incomplete
[00:12:44.190]or incorrect management of a very large public landscape.
[00:12:48.894]The one season skipped just,
[00:12:51.630]it just became an absolute weedy mess.
[00:12:54.470]Just, here's just a couple examples above the wall,
[00:12:58.080]along the sidewalk edge.
[00:13:00.350]And then you look at what happened when we had winter kill
[00:13:04.088]or herbicide kill trying to get rid of the weeds.
[00:13:08.290]This is what the appearance of what should be
[00:13:11.230]one of those really simple landscapes that is filled
[00:13:14.870]with grasses looks like,
[00:13:16.170]and that's really not acceptable to most people
[00:13:18.900]who like the grasses.
[00:13:21.060]The other thing that happens of course,
[00:13:22.930]and this is an example of maybe too much of a good thing,
[00:13:26.610]or maybe too much of the same thing,
[00:13:29.380]not much contrast with the brick of the house
[00:13:31.784]on this one,
[00:13:33.067]lots and lots of very large dominant grasses
[00:13:37.506]that are all very tan,
[00:13:39.900]and of course, again,
[00:13:41.010]when they get cut back in the spring, you got nothing.
[00:13:44.030]So you hope there's not a junk car or all the utilities
[00:13:47.330]hiding behind those particular grasses.
[00:13:51.610]We also have some grasses that really are misbehaviors.
[00:13:55.400]Is it the climate or the micro climate?
[00:13:57.760]In some instances, it is.
[00:14:00.060]Are they cultivars that are unstable?
[00:14:03.255]Is it good intentions on the part of the designers
[00:14:06.550]who use them, and then of course,
[00:14:08.290]failure to manage when they escape.
[00:14:11.110]So, we have one of the little pennisetums seeding itself
[00:14:14.640]into the turf, which is manageable, but it's not manageable
[00:14:18.260]by hand pulling unless you really have a lot of time
[00:14:20.483]on your hands.
[00:14:22.840]And then we have Japanese Blood Grass,
[00:14:24.783]which is a really an invasive species in other locations
[00:14:30.550]and is proven to be that way here too.
[00:14:33.290]We're also, again, concerned a little bit about
[00:14:36.350]some of the pennisetums.
[00:14:37.510]They're very beautiful.
[00:14:39.100]They do seed themselves,
[00:14:41.100]but the Miscanthus or the Maiden Grasses, thus far,
[00:14:44.250]in a lot of locations in the United States
[00:14:46.500]are terribly invasive.
[00:14:48.480]So again, knowing the habit, keeping your eye on it,
[00:14:51.980]doing the management is really essential with the grasses.
[00:14:55.370]And of course, moving to things like
[00:14:57.111]some of the newer cultivars,
[00:14:59.323]this is just a little wispy piece of one of the newer
[00:15:03.590]Little Bluestems with some other perennials behind it,
[00:15:09.100]letting people who know what they're doing,
[00:15:11.150]take take a gander at just exactly how these plants
[00:15:15.430]are going to behave in the landscape.
[00:15:17.670]And then you end up with the absolute incredible beauty,
[00:15:21.060]if you pause to look at it,
[00:15:22.820]of what they look like in beautiful flower
[00:15:25.220]or beautiful seed.
[00:15:26.900]There's so many choices of ornamental grasses.
[00:15:30.310]And again, you want to start with style.
[00:15:33.260]Is it vertical?
[00:15:34.093]Is it horizontal?
[00:15:35.690]Are you after the winter character?
[00:15:37.610]Are you after the movement and the texture
[00:15:40.000]and make sure you place them in a location where it would
[00:15:42.820]be easy for you to manage them?

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