Discover the glee of grasses

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This article was published 25/05/2024 (834 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Grasses bring a whole range of new aesthetic possibilities,” says Nik Friesen-Hughes, landscape designer and owner of Dogwood Landscape Design.

“Grasses are a great plant to tie things together. We all want to experiment, and our garden can be our plant collection but when we think of the garden as a composition, it is good to have some species in higher proportion that are repeated throughout the landscape. Grasses achieve this with their softness – that very fine foliage – and you repeat that again and again.”

“If you just have a bit of everything everywhere, the garden doesn’t really have an identity and can feel messy or overwhelming.”

He had me at “new aesthetic possibilities.”

Friesen-Hughes specializes in naturalistic planting design. He is enamored with the characteristics and design possibilities of grasses. “I love flowers, but grasses have a special quality,” he says.

“What makes them especially useful is their resilience. Native grasses are adapted to handle all extremes of our climate. They are neat and tidy, very deer and rabbit resistant, drought tolerant, long-lived, and low maintenance. Once established, they do not require supplemental moisture or deadheading. As well, grasses are very good at recycling their own leaves as they fall down around them, so they don’t require any extra fertilizer.”

When Friesen-Hughes designs gardens, he plants grasses densely. “I want to have a groundcover layer that holds in moisture, keeps soil healthy, provides habitat for beneficial insects and microorganisms but also keeps out weeds. So, the best defence.”

When we make a garden, says Friesen-Hughes, we are making a plant community. “In a prairie, for example, grasses and smaller perennials will form a groundcover layer and larger, longer-lived native perennials like Joe-pye weed, Culver’s root, giant hyssop, and asters will rise above.”

It is a great relationship, he says, because structurally grasses hold their spaces and at the same time support larger, taller perennials. “But they also cover leggy stems with sparse foliage that you see sometimes on Joe-pye weed or Culver’s root.” Or for that matter, a classic garden perennial with tall spires such as delphinium.

The focus of naturalistic planting design, says Friesen-Hughes, is emphasizing a plant’s overall structure and shape rather than just it’s colour or flower, including how it looks through all stages of its life cycle.

“Grasses have great structure throughout the year. Some grasses have beautiful seedheads as well. They also have more of a soft form that isn’t overwhelming.” This latter attribute is especially useful in the landscape, says Friesen-Hughes.

“For example, you can use soft foliage to achieve textural contrast with the coarser foliage of bolder, larger-leaved plants like Echinacea coneflower or Joe-pye. Grasses provide a soft backdrop for bolder plants to emerge from as well as a place for the eyes to rest. If every plant in a space is super bold and coarse-textured, there would be no contrast and the planting would be overwhelming.”

The soft seedheads of grasses are also effective at highlighting deeper colours and more refined forms, says Friesen-Hughes.

“The seedheads create a semi-transparent lens to view other plants and it can make the garden feel a little whimsical, magical, or natural and wild. Grasses capture that feeling in a way that few other plants can.”

Let’s consider for a moment Karl Foerster feather reed grass which is the preferred ornamental grass of choice for many gardeners.

“When I use a tall grass such as Karl Foerster,” says Friesen-Hughes, “I use it here and there within a garden for a splash. It’s one that needs other plants around it because the base of it isn’t attractive – it’s the plumes on top that are attractive. Karl Foerster works best when its plumes rise above other plants around it.”

Friesen-Hughes recommends using a taller grass either in a small group of plants or as an individual plant that is repeated throughout a planting.

“In that way, you are using repetition to your advantage,” he says. “Repetition makes a planting more cohesive and is visually effective. Rather than planting just a straight row of grasses, put one here and three there and another one or two somewhere else. Because then you are using grasses to break your view which hints at more behind and invites someone to look in. This technique can make a planting feel larger and more interesting and it creates more opportunities to view it from multiple angles.”

Friesen-Hughes utilizes numerous types of grasses in his designs, but his two favourite native prairie grasses are Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis).

“Little Bluestem can handle anything. It does super well in dry soil, but it also does well in moist soil. It is salt tolerant and can be planted in boulevard gardens. Little Bluestem’s green-blue foliage colour is amazing. The upright foliage turns purple-red in fall and tan-coloured in winter.

“Prairie Dropseed has fine-textured, arching foliage with a unique fragrance. People love it. Both of these grasses are so versatile and dependable.”

Sheep fescue (Festuca ovina saximontana) is another excellent native grass, says Friesen-Hughes. “I think sheep fescue is underrated. It is so cute.”

A short (15 to 30 cm) bunch grass with green-blue foliage and reddish-tinted seedheads, sheep fescue is a good substitute for Elijah Blue Fescue, a cultivar that is not always reliable in our climate. “Sheep fescue is drought tolerant. I wouldn’t plant it in wet soil.”

Switch grass (Panicum virgatum) is a native grass that grows in sandy or clay soil, wet or dry conditions. It grows to a height of 80 to 120 cm and has lacy seedheads that turn a golden colour in fall. “There are several cultivars of switch grass, too, such as Northwind and Heavy Metal,” says Friesen-Hughes.

Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis) is a drought-tolerant native clump grass with curious-looking seedheads that grow horizontally. Its nickname is toothbrush. Blue Grama’s compact habit makes it ideal for planting at the front of a border. Friesen-Hughes also likes Blue Oat grass, a non-native grass, although rabbits may chew on the foliage in spring before moving on.

The majority of grasses grow best in a full sun location. But a great option for a part shade location is Purple Oat grass (Schizachne purpurascens).

“It’s a cute little native grass (50 cm),” says Friesen-Hughes. “You can find it at Prairie Originals.”

Tufted Hairgrass (Deschampsia caespitosa) is another option for part shade.

“It has an amazing soft seedhead, like a cloud. It is short-lived, however,” says Friesen-Hughes.

If you are interested in the different ways to use native and ornamental grasses in your garden, Friesen-Hughes recommends visiting the seasonal gardens at The Leaf at Assiniboine Park.

“The outdoor gardens at The Leaf are an excellent opportunity to see the beauty of grasses and a naturalistic planting style. It’s a chance to see the effect of repeating grasses and the use of bigger perennials that intermingle and rise above the grasses.”

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