Grasses, Sedges & Rushes - Heirloom Garden Plants

Achnatherum calamagrostis Silver spike grass  Z 5-8

Gorgeous, graceful, tawny-silvery spikes on this clumping grass from June all summer

Size: 36" x 36"

Care: sun in moist well drained soil

Native: Central & southern Europe

Collected before 1750

Boutelona gracilis            Blue gramma  Z 4-9

One sided, horizontal, purple tinged spikelets in July-September, very unusual.

Size:  2' x 12" 

Care:  sun in dry to moist well drained soil         

Native:  Manitoba & all US except SE & Pacific NW

For the Navajo this was a "life medicine" and an antidote to an overdose of "life medicine."  Also used to cure sore throats and cuts - chew on the root and blow on the cut.  Navajo girls carried it in the Squaw Dance.  Hopi made baskets from this grass.  Zuni made brooms & hairbrushes from it.  Several tribes ate this & made bedding for their animals from this.  1^st collected for horticulture by Humboldt & Bonpland.

Briza media Quaking grass, Pearl grass, Didder, Totter, Dillies, Doddering dickies  Z 4-8

Elegant inflorescences with dangling oat-like spikelets, 30" tall, in May.

Size:  30' X 10"

Care: sun to part shade in any soil

Native: Eurasia.

Great for cut arrangements, fresh or dried. 
In cultivation since at least mid 1700's. 

Calamagrostis brachytricha  Diamond grass, Feather reed grass       Z 4-9
 
Arching foliage with gorgeous upright  pale pink plumes September to November     

Size: 4' x 2'  

Native: East Asia

Care:  Full sun to part shade in moist to moist well drained soil

Collected before 1856.

Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘‘Karl Foerester"   Feather reed grass Z 5-7

Completely, reliably erect grass - winner perennial plant of year award 2001.

Size:  3-5' x 2'   

Care: sun to part shade in moist to moist well drained soil.  Cut back in late winter.

This is a natural cross of Calamagrostis epigeos and Calamagrostis arundinacea, native of Asia and Europe.  German nurseryman Karl Forester's. (1874-1970) keen eye spotted this in the Hamburg Botanic Garden.   He listed this in his nursery catalog in 1939.  Under Nazi domination he risked it all by keeping Jewish friends & workers.  After WW II his nursery was the only perennial supplier in East Germany.  This grass sent from Denmark to the US in 1964.

Carex bebbii  Bebb's Sedge  Z 2-6

Interesting inflorescence blooming green turning brown from April to July.

Size: 10-24" x 10" and spreading to form tussocks       

Care: sun to part shade in wet to moist soil      

Native: entire sub-Arctic No. America north of Virginia to California.

Wildlife value: Important wildlife food source for wetlands.  Sparrows, finches, songbirds, rails, grouse, snipe, black duck eat the seeds and moose eat the roots and leaves.

Collected by 1889 and named for naturalist who specialized in Willows, Michael Schuck Bebb (1833-1895).

Carex comosa    Longhair sedge, Bristly sedge Z 4-10

Ornamental dangling bottle brush spikes from May to August

Size: 2-4' x 2'    

Native: all of sub-Arctic No. America except western intermountain states and provinces and except Alaska. 

Care:  Sun to part shade in wet to moist soil

Wildlife value: Rhizomes stabilize shorelines while plants give ducks cover and the seeds provide food. 

Collected by 1845.

Carex grayi     Gray's Sedge  Z 3-8

Club-like maces in June to August.  This one will make your friends & neighbors ask "what the heck is it?"

Size: 30" x  24" 

Care:  Full sun to part shade in moist soil

Native:  Vermont west to Wisconsin, south to Georgia and Missouri

Collected before 1880.

Carex plantaginea    Plaintain-leaved Sedge     Z 5-9
Bold textured, evergreen, seersucker-like leaves with dark tan flower spikes in spring 

Size: 12-24" x  12" 

Care:   part shade in moist soil   

Native:  North America from Canada to Alabama 

Menominee Indians used the root to prevent snakebites and also to cure snakebite wounds. Liberty Hyde Bailey described its ornamental uses: "makes excellent and interesting clumps in corners and about buildings and along walls."

Carex rosea  Rosy sedge, Stellate sedge, Curley-styled wood sedge, Golden star sedge  Z. 3-9 

Graceful mound of paper-thin leaves topped by stems with star shaped seeds in May-June, evergreen. 

Size:  12" x 10"

Care: part shade and shade in moist well drained soil.  

Native: No. Dakota south to TX & east incl. WI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Collected from the wild before 1811.

_{Carex stricta  Tussock sedge  Z 5-8
Mop-head like mounds of thinnest of thin leaves, sage green in color.}

Size: 2-3' x 2'   

Native: Eastern 2/3rds of No. America   

Care: wet to moist soil
 
Wildlife value: Important wildlife plant.  Tussock sedge gives cover to frogs, toads and salamanders for breeding.  Ducks, sparrows, small herons & geese nest within and perch atop the mounds.  Cardinals, wild turkeys, mallards and wood ducks make nests from the leaves. Provides food for Caterpillars of Mulberry Wing, Eyed Brown and Black Dash butterflies.   

Collected by 1792. 

Chasmanthium latifolium syn. Uniola latifolia   Northern Sea oats  Z 5-9

In August and September Northern sea oats bear pendulous panicles of oat-like spikelets, emerging green and turning bronze. They hang on all winter. 

Size:  36" x 24" 

Care:  full sun to part shade in any soil       

Native:  Eastern U.S., New Jersey to Texas

Introduced by Michaux, extraordinary French plant hunter, 1746-1802, who searched much of eastern America for plants. Indians ate the seeds for food. Used ornamentally since Victorian times for fresh and dried arrangements.

Deschampsia caespitosa  Hair grass  Z 4-9

Airy pink panicles like delicate billowing clouds of seed heads top clumps of arching slender leaves in mid summer persisting through winter.

Size: 2-4' x 18"

Care: moist well drained to moist soil in sun to shade. 

Native: Europe, Asia & No. America
 
Deschampsia named for French botanist Deslongchamps (1774-1849).  This species found by the mid 1700's.

Eragrostis spectabilis   Purple Love grass  Z 5-9

This 2' tall grass bears graceful, profuse tiny purple paniclets in August and September.

Size:  2' x 18"

Care: Full sun in well drained soil -  (slow to emerge in spring)   

Native:  Maine west to Minnesota, south to Arizona, Wisconsin native

 Eragrostis is Greek meaning "love," and "grass," agrostis. This species first named by German botanist Frederick Pursh, author of Flora Americana Septronalis, 1814.

Eragrostis trichoides  Sand love grass, Plains love grass  Z 5-9

Amber leaves in fall with rose-purple flowers and showy amethyst seed heads, 12-24" tall.  Excellent in fresh or dried arrangements. 

Size:  12-24" x 18"   

Care:  sun in well drained soil

Native:  WI to Nebraska, South to TX      

Eragrostis is Greek meaning "love", (eros) and grass,  agrostis.   1^st collected by Englishman Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859) who searched entire No. American continent, parts of Canada, from New England west to Oregon, the South, Midwest, the Plains, S.E. parts of the U.S., California & Hawaii finding thousands of new plants.  Grass of the Year award by Great Plants for the Great Plains, Nebraska State Arboretum.

Festuca ovina glauca  Blue fescue   Z 4-8

Spiky mound of thin blue gray foliage - summer short spikes of blue-green flowers

Size:  12" x 10"

Care:  full sun, well drained soil

Native:  temperate areas thoughout the world  

Festuca is Latin meaning "grass stalk." American garden cultivation since 1800's.

Helictotrichon sempervirens   Blue oat grass   Z 4-9
June-July spikes rise above a rounded mound of thin, steel-blue leaves - one of the best

Size:  4' x 2'     

Care:  full sun in well drained soil         

Native:  Europe

Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden Great Plant Pick.  Named by Dominique Villars (1745-1814).  Liberty Hyde Bailey (1933) said that Blue oat grass "scarcely grown as ornamental subjects."

Imperata cylindrical  ‘Rubra'  Japanese bloodgrass     Z 4-9

Erect greenish red grass blades turn deep, blood red in August and persist through fall, 16-20" tall.   In northern zones will not flower.  In warmer areas flowers and creates seed where it may be invasive.

Size: 16-20" x 12" 

Care: Grow in full sun to light shade in moist well drained soil. 

Native:  Japan 

Cultivated in Japanese gardens since 1800's.

Isolepis cernua    Fiber optic grass, Salt marsh  Z 8-10 elsewhere treat as annual or houseplant

Clumping mound of the finest of hair-like blades of grass with charming white tufts at the ends., like bursting green fireworks.

Size: 6-12" x 12"            

Care: sun to shade in moist soil or submerge roots in water

Native:  S. Europe and N. Africa      NOTICE - PLANT IS POISONOUS

L H Bailey 1933: "drooping stems produce a very graceful effect."

Koeleria cristata syn.  Koeleria macrantha  June grass        Z 4-8

Erect ivory spike-like panicles June thru August, poke above a neat mound of erect grass blades.

Size:  2' x 18"       

Care:  Sun in well drained to moist well drained soil   

Native: prairies of No. America

Koeleria named by Linnaeus for grass specialist and professor at Mainz, G.L. Koeler (1765-1806).  Cheyenne Indians tied June grass to the heads of Sun Dancers to deter them from getting tired and made paint brushes from it.  New Mexico's Jemez Indians made brooms from tied blades.   Isleta  and Havasupai Indians ate ground seeds in bread  and  as mush.  Liberty Hyde Bailey (1933) said: "Sometimes cultivated for lawn decoration in open dry ground."