Ornamental grasses

Whether it’s due to the autumn sun showing them off to particuarlly fine effect, or to the inescapbable truth that almost everything else in the borders is either starting to look a little tired, or has turned to mush, October has been a month when ornamental grasses have reigned supreme in the garden.


I took myself off to Wisley one afternoon to spend some time with the grasses planted in front of the Lindley Library. This is a wonderful spot in which to appreciate the range and also the spectacle of a masssed planting of ornamental grasses; you can retreat over the lawns of Seven Acres and look back towards the borders, one moment scanning across the aggregated planting and enjoying the whole as a single, dynamic composition, and the next focussing in on the varied forms and textures of individual specimens.

But – true to form – what I particularly wanted to do was to stick my nose right into the plants and get to know some of them, if not intimately, then at least on slightly more familiar terms. And since grasses tend to flower towards the end of the season, finally flinging their flowering stems skywards having spent the first months of the year in various manifestations of hummock, mound or amorphous clump, this was a perfect time of year in which to indulge my wish.

There is one other reason for my chosing this approach to ornamental grasses, which is probably best broached after the manner of a confession. In truth, I am still haunted by the suburban pampas grass of the 1970s. The mere sight of a large cortaderia standing in its own space is sufficient to conjur spectral figures from Abigail’s Party, waftily dancing to Demis Roussos. This isn't to say that I believe you should be prevented from enjoying a single specimen in all its statuesque glory, but rather that, for me at least, such a bold statement carries too much baggage. I prefer to enjoy the plant as part of a group, surrounded by complementary forms which blur its edges while accentuating its imposing presence and the graceful opulence of its blooms.

It strikes me as odd that something as simple as a grass can trigger such a strong reaction, but I reason that childhood memories are some of the most potent, and there’s no reason why the symbols attached to them shouldn’t belong to the plant kingdom. With which digression, I fix a lens to the camera and march straight up to the object in question, Cortaderia selloana 'Pumila', a cultivar on which the RHS has seen fit to bestow the honour of its Award of Garden Merit. I can’t deny, it’s a handsome fellow, with a wonderful contrast between the apparent fluffiness of the white-gold panicles, and the thin, glaucus strapped leaves with their wickedly serrated edges. I push to the back of my mind the recollection that one of my clients has a specimen that needs moving. A job for another day.

There’s a particular property of certain grasses that I find fascinating, an almost metallic sheen to the flowers which catches the light in such as way that a drift of them planted to catch the low autumn sun will appear to be a diaphonous cloud of spun wire, on which are threaded small beads of the same metal. It’s not particularly easy to capture as a still image, as the gently movement of the stems refracts the light continually and causes the whole to sparkle, adding greatly to the impression. Quite a breathtaking effect, and one I noticed first with Deschampsia cespitosa 'Goldtau'.

But this quality is not limited to Deschampsia, though from what alloy the red-purple flowers of Panicum virgatum 'Warrior' could have been spun, I haven’t a notion.

This switch grass grows to a height of around 1.5m, as does its near relative P. 'Heavy Metal'. This latter variety shares the reddish autumn tints with its cousin, but ironically possesses a somewhat more military bearing than the slightly lax 'Warrior', standing to attention in well-defined, upright clumps.

Panicum virgatum 'Heavy Metal'

I tend to think of grasses as naturally assuming more rounded, or arching shapes, so it’s useful when considering a new planting to be able to include a few with a more columnar habit. Another switch grass takes this a step further, Panicum virgatum 'Northwind', its blue-grey foliage beginning to take on its autumnal golden hues in the photograph here.

This reminded me of one other stalwart, the reliable and rather beautiful, if austere, Calamagrostis x arcutiflora 'Karl Foerster', its uncompromisingly vertical flower stems turning to a shade generally referred to as ‘biscuit’ by mid summer. Sure enough, I found some in the beds here, standing like a pair of shock-headed sentries between a cortaderia on one side and a tall miscanthus on the other.

Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' in the foreground

The coppery red theme was again in evidence on several of the cultivars of Miscanthus sinensis. Pictured here is M. sinensis 'Little Zebra', a compact form of 'Zebrinus' with the same yellow/green bands on leaves, only reaching a maximum of 1.5 metres in height, rather less than the towering specimens I’m more used to.

Miscanthus 'Little Zebra'

Miscanthus 'Little Zebra'. A great grass for a smaller space

'Gnome' is another shorter cultivar with a reddish flush, although without the banding on the leaves. I wasn’t hugely taken with it – perhaps the 'Little Zebra' had dazzled me.

Miscanthus 'Gnome'. Marginally more attractive than its name would suggest

Making my way towards the end of the borders (quite coincidentally the point nearest to the restaurant) I began to encounter the fountain grasses – mounds of fresh green foliage topped with the most inviting flowers invoking nothing so much as the foxtails which give rise to another of the common names for Pennisetum, the foxtail grass.

The first of these, with its long, tapering flowers in shades of light pink, initially gave rise to some confusion as the only label in close proximity proclaimed Molinia  caeruliea subsp arundinacea 'Zuneigung', and I was fairly sure it wasn’t that. Subsequent confirmation from persons more knowledgeable than myself verified that that this was, as I’d assumed, Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails' (sometimes available as 'Fairy Tales', rather losing the point of the pun in the cultivar name), which fades to tan and beige later in the season, reaching a height of 1.2m.

Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails'

The late flowering Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Moudry' has purplish black flowers, and a shaggier disposition, to the extent that I can’t help being reminded of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout when looking at a largish clump. It’s not unnatractive, though, just a more open, relaxed proposition than 'Fairy Tails'.

Having by this time filled my head with grasses and my memory card with photographs, my stomach was starting to crave similar attention and, as luck would have it, I was within yards of the door to the Conservatory Cafe. Wisley’s rather good at that; no matter where your garden wanderings have taken you, you never seem to be far from an eatery, giving you the perfect opporutnity to ponder the plants you’ve recently been obsessing over while stuffing your face. As clear a case of having your cake and eating it as I can think of.

Neighbourhood watch

“We can offer you a cup of tea in a bit,” said Roger, his eyes twinkling as his wife, Elizabeth, finished his sentence. “But I’m afraid if it comes to a drone attack or a CIA sniper, you’re on your own!”. We were standing in their front garden, discussing a phone conversation Roger had just had with one of their neighbours.


Within two minutes of my arriving at my clients’ property, the phone had rung. It was the American lady who lives opposite; clearly a responsible person, and custodian of a well-developed sense of civic duty.

“Roger, I don’t want to alarm you, but a man with a beard has just gone down the side of your house.”

It was unclear whether, in the mind of the informant, the most sinister thing about this event was the fact that a man had gone down the side of the house, or that this suspicious character was in possession of a beard – an item which, so my client was given to presume, he was wearing on his face in the traditional manner, although it must be admitted this had not been made explicit.

“Well, um...thank you Pamela.” Roger, the politest man you could meet, had made a masterful recovery from the shock of the news. “But I take it that the individual in question is the same chap who has just parked a green land rover on the drive, with his company logo, website and phone number on the sides. It’s Andrew, our gardener. He’s been bringing his beard down the side of the house every fortnight for two and a half years now.”

“Well, just so you know, ” came the reply, unphased. “You can’t be too careful.”

So there you have it. Reader, consider yourselves duly warned; Men with Beards have been seen in your area. Be watchful.

You can’t be too careful.

Sussex Prairie Gardens

This blog entry should really have been posted in September, but I confess I was waylaid by pelargonium cake. And the rest, I’m afraid, is history

It was the big daises that did it. My spur-of-the-moment acquisition of a car boot full of jolly flowers (which you can read about here) had started a minor obsession, and I spent much of September day-dreaming about late season perennials. It’s one thing to start small, buying a few plants of a handful of varieties – this can have quite a transformative effect on a garden in late summer, and one of the most exciting aspects about these plants is that many welcome division, so that in time you can increase your stock, fill your borders and still probably have enough to give away to friends. So I’ve nothing whatsoever against starting small; I can be patient when it comes to my own garden. But that didn’t mean I was without a hankering to see what someone else had had the opportunity to do with perennial planting en masse – great swathes of identical flowers, interwoven with drifts of complementary forms and textures, with generous clumps of ornamental grasses for good measure. Such was the picture in my head, and so I took myself off to Sussex Prairie Gardens, about an hours drive away.



This is the six acre garden created by Paul and Pauline McBride, open to the public throughout the summer. In 2008, around 30,000 plants (of 600 varieties) were planted into curved borders laid out in a design inspired by the spiral pattern of a nautilus shell, with a central spine of neatly clipped, undulating hornbeam hedges. Aside from this single concession to formality, planting is in a naturalistic style, eschewing rigid regularity and mimicking natural plant communities. The borders are deep, wound through with inviting bark paths which encourage the visitor to experience the plants at a more intimate level, rather than standing at a distance and viewing a display, as in a museum. It’s a refreshingly engaging approach with a slight fairytale aspect to it; tall plants towering over you, paths, seating areas and pieces of sculpture emerging unexpectedly round corners – a ‘Secret Garden’ kind of feel to it, but with a very different palette of plants.

Pulling off the main road into a perfectly pleasant but ordinary field where you can park your car, and surrounded by the lush green Sussex countryside, it seems difficult to picture anything other than the  traditional English patchwork of pastoral and arable land existing in this place. But after only a few steps you find yourself deep within rich, multi-layered planting – at once both alien and somehow oddly in keeping with the backdrop of tall oak trees. Quite something to behold, particularly as at this stage you’ve not even got to the entrance.

Layer upon layer, from Echinacea in the foreground to Eupatorium at the back

One you’ve acquired your ticket at the shop (I’d not realised I was visiting an RHS Partner Garden, so suddenly I had more money to spend on cake), you are free to roam the garden, although there’s a gentle suggestion that you plunge into the borders at the large copper letter ‘P’. It seems as good an idea as any, and so I duly did.

The giant ‘P’ conjures an image of a steam-punked version of Vegas, but then perhaps that’s not entirely inappropriate for a garden based on American-style prarie plants. Whatever you make of the scultpure, I particularly liked the planting here. There’s a particularly pleasing intersection between the curve of the grasses on the right and the arc of the Eupratorium on the left, with an inviting path leading onward through the middle, and the effect of the plant combinations is light and airy, suffering from none of the blockiness that can sometimes sneak in when planting in such quantities.

Percy and Penny

Turning the corner I was pleased to find masses of red bistort Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Firedance'. I’m a big persicaria fan, from a small variety like ‘Donald Lowndes’ to something on a much larger scale, as here, although I know many people dislike it due to the leaves supposedly resembling dock. I can’t say that’s something which has ever bothered me. Something that does bother me, however, is the manner in which my brain jumbles up the names of entirely unrelated plants with the same initial letter, often leaving me floundering like an idiot for the correct term, trying to mentally select between Persicaria and Pennisetum (on particularly bad days, Panicum and  Penstemon will get thrown into the mental soup). Perhaps it doesn't help that these are two plants I particularly admire, so it’s nice to see them both in combination here, deep rose pink spires of the bistort rising up behind the wafty flowers of the fountain grass.

These Veronicastrums are another striking plant which I meet fairly early on during my visit. The flowers have just about gone over by the end of September, but they still made for an impressive sight throughout the gardens.

I emerged briefly onto one of the wide grass paths between the borders to be presented with a view of Gaura and Verbena bonariensis. These produce an enchanting and airy combination at a height of about three feet above ground. Sadly closer to the base, they’re rather less attractive, and could do with something less lofty in front to hide the bare ankles.

I’ve clearly missed the best time of year for Allium 'Summer Beauty', seen at the front of this combination, but while the round, lilac flower heads have gone to seed, the plant still performs well throughout late summer and early autumn. Yet another for the wish list. At the top left of this picture behind the white bench, fabulously airy screen dotted with pretty pink marsh-mallow flowers is created by Althaea cannabina, the hemp-leaved hollyhock.

Somewhere in the borders; lost, but loving it

By this time, I was getting decidedly lost within the borders, but rather enjoying the experience.

The tall plant on the right caught my eye with its fantastic dayglo pink and lime green colour scheme. Enquiring as to its identity led to one of the more embarrassing moments of the week – when Pauline told me it was Phytolaccca americana, I found it necessary to ask where it was from. The clue, of course, in the name.

Seed heads of American pokeweed, Phytolacca americana

It’s highly toxic to humans and animals, a fact which, for some reason, didn't surprise me in the least. It would look grand alongside Ricinis communis – perhaps they could form the backbone of a poison border.

Erigeron giganteum rising out of a foaming sea of Sedum

The beautiful, cherry red Sedum matrona at the base of Erigeron giganteum, far larger than the species most of us are used to finding in our garden paths (E. karvinskianus).

A mop head of feathery Miscanthus over a jostling crowd of Echinacea

Yellow is a colour which I always find challenging in the garden – there are certain shades I find unappealing. I can’t stand most daffodils, although I’m considering something like Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' for next year. I’ve even had  a small patch of Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivanti 'Goldsturm' for many years now – although I think this cascading river of orangey yellow here is pushing me to my absolute limit.

I always find it interesting, where possible, to wander away from the garden some distance and look back, just to see how it lies on the land. Here, there’s no escaping the notion that this garden offers a good-natured two fingers up to the landscape, a colourful merry-go-round dropped from space, or perhaps a flying saucer, crash landed in the countryside. Oddly, the cutting garden section which you walk through before reaching the entrance (pictured at the beginning of this post) seems to nestle more comfortably in its space than the main garden.

Parky in places?

There’s also something about the design – with its wide, curving grass paths – which make the place feel less like a garden and more like an attractively laid out public park, where borders are planted for the education of the gardening visitor, and the visual delight of the less horticulturally interested. Perhaps part of this is due to the physical disconnect between the garden and the house, which you can’t see from the garden. As a visitor, I find I’m most at home when in and amongst the plants on the narrow winding paths. Slightly unsettled by all this, I plunge back in. 

On the drive back to Kent, I wonder how my experience of the garden met my initial expectations. While I was admittedly hoping for big daisies, the word ‘prairie’ had conjured in my mind wide stretches of grasses in subltley complementary tones, a gentle breeze rippling through a monochrome tapestry of different forms and textures backlit in the low September sun. Perhaps the odd spot of colour from a patch of stonecrops, sneeze weeds and cone flowers, which would somehow emphasise the patchwork of drabs. What I actually found is clearly an articulation of the new perennial movement – unsurprising when you consider that the creators of the garden worked with Piet Oudolf on a garden in Luxembourg in 2001. If you come expecting this, you’re unlikely to be disappointed. In my current frame of mind, this riotously colourful sweet shop is just what I was craving at the tail end of summer. It’s a fantastic resource for observing the effect of mass planting of different varieties, and one I’m fortunate to have so close to home.

October showers

A brief interlude between downpours in the woodland garden

“Unsettled” is the word the weather folk use to describe the kind of conditions we’re experiencing at the moment, as if the restless sky can’t quite make up its mind; fickle, antsy. We like to know what to expect – “what's the weather going to be like today?” – so we can be prepared, and dress accordingly. Unpredictable conditions somehow offend our sense of propriety, causing us to tut, glancing upwards and ruefully remarking, “it can’t make up it’s mind today”. One moment the world is bathed in golden sunshine, the next, we’re running for cover, struggling back into waterproofs which only a moment ago were too warm to wear. I’ve spent much of the week doing some kind of frenzied gardener’s strip-tease, leaving piles of clothes around the garden, then dashing back to retrieve them when needed. This kind of palaver is frustrating for those of us doomed to wander beneath the sky on two legs, who choose our interchangeable pelts according to what’s going on above. But, down below, the ground welcomes the rain, and it strikes me how much better are our gardens at accepting the vagaries of the weather than their owners. And it’s not just our gardens, but the surrounding landscape which demonstrates a supreme resourcefulness in adapting to conditions; a resourcefulness not always entirely appreciated by the gardener. At least the badgers have stopped digging up the lavender bed in search of juicy earthworms; a new habit they'd developed during the unusually dry September.

This thing – this annoyance we feel during showery weather – comes down to a problem of perception. We consider this weather changeable. But what if it isn’t? We see it shifting back and forth from one state to another. Perhaps instead, it’s in a fixed state of being, and that state is...changeable. If we’re discomforted by the unpredictability of the weather, will we be less so if we predict it will be unpredictable? Rather like the current season, neither quite summer nor yet autumn, we are in transition, somewhere in between, and that is how it is. That, as with most things in life, is how it usually is – somewhere between two things. You’d think we’d get used to it.

Strong winds, sudden downpours and some minor inconvenience with clothing. It’s a small price to pay for the sight of the clouds scudding across the sun and the kind of chill, damp freshness in the air I’ve been longing for all year. And even while these thoughts occur to me, I’m forced to take cover in the land rover from a sudden downpour of particularly biblical fury, rain streaming down my coat and boots and pooling in the footwell. Through the fogged up windscreen, I see a fox loping across the garden, unconcerned, perfectly dressed for the weather. I watch it disappear through the hedgerow into the fields, with something approaching envy.