Grasses, Sedges & Rushes
Showing 9–16 of 24 results
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Chasmanthium latifolium Northern Sea oats Z 5-9
Graceful, pendulous oat-like spikes
In August – December 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
Wildlife Value: attracts butterfliesIntroduced by Michaux (1746-1802) extraordinary French plant hunter, who searched much of eastern No. America for plants. Indians ate the seeds for food. Used ornamentally since Victorian times for fresh and dried arrangements.
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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.
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 soil in sun to shade
Native: Europe, Asia & No. America, Wisconsin nativeDeschampsia named for French botanist Deslongchamps (1774-1849.) Caespitosa means that it grows in clumps. Named and described in 1753.
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Eragrostis spectabilis Purple Love grass Z 5-9
Profuse tiny purple panicles in August-September. One of internationally known garden designer Piet Oudolf’s 100 “MUST HAVE” plants, Gardens Illustrated 94 (2013)
Profuse tiny purple panicles in August-September. One of internationally known garden designer Piet Oudolf’s 100 “MUST HAVE” plants, Gardens Illustrated 94 (2013)
Size: 2’ x 18”
Care: Full sun in well-drained soil - slow to emerge in spring. Drought tolerant
Native: Maine west to Minnesota, south to Arizona, Wisconsin nativeEragrostis is Greek meaning “love”, (eros) and grass, agrostis. This species first named by German botanist Frederick Pursh (1774-1820) in his book Flora Americae Septronalis. (1813)
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Festuca ovina var. glauca Blue fescue Z 4-10
Short mound of silvery blue spiky grass tufts. In summer short spikes of blue-green flowers.
Short mound of silvery blue spiky grass tufts. In summer short spikes of blue-green flowers.
Size: 12" x 10"
Care: full sun, well-drained soil
Native: temperate areas in Europe
Wildlife Value: host for larvae of a few butterfliesFestuca is Latin meaning “grass stalk..” This variety described and named in 1881
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Helictotrichon sempervirens Blue oat grass Z 4-9
June-October spikes rise above a rounded mound of thin, steel-blue, evergreen (sempervirens means always green) leaves – one of the best.
OUT OF STOCK
June-October spikes rise above a rounded mound of thin, steel-blue, evergreen (sempervirens means always green) leaves – one of the best.
Size: 4' x 2'
Care: full sun in moist well-drained to well-drained soil
Native: Europe
Awards: Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden Great Plant Pick, England’s Royal Botanical Society Award of Garden Merit.1st described in Prospectus de l’Histoire des Plantes de Dauphiné 17. 1779. Liberty Hyde Bailey said that Blue oat grass was “scarcely grown as ornamental subjects.”(1933)
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Hystrix patula syn. Elymus hystris var. hystris Bottle brush grass Z 5-9
June thru fall bears 6” long spikes looking like bottle brushes
OUT OF STOCK- PLEASE EMAIL FOR AVAILABILITY
June thru fall bears 6” long spikes looking like bottle brushes.
Size: 2-3’ x 12-18”
Care: sun to part shade in dry to moist well-drained soil - tolerates dry shade
Native: Nova Scotia S to Virginia, W to ND and OK.
Wildlife Value: Birds eat seedsHystrix from the Greek (‘hedgehog’) meaning “with spikes” or “bristly” describing the flowers and patula means “spreading.” Collected before 1794. In 1913 L H Bailey wrote, “sometimes used for lawn decoration and for borders.”
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Imperata cylindrica ‘Rubra’ Japanese blood grass Z 4-9
Green grass blades tinged with red turn blood red in late summer and fall.
Green grass blades tinged with red turn blood red in late summer and fall.
Can not ship to : Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah & West Virginia
Size: 16-20" x 12" gradually spreading
Care: sun to light shade in moist well-drained soil.
Native: Japan
Wildlife Value: resistant to deer and rabbitsCultivated in Japanese gardens since 1800’s. First described in literature in 1812. Introduced to the US in 1911 near Mobile, AL as packing material in a shipment of plants from Japan and introduced to Mississippi as a forage crop from the Philippines before 1920.
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Koeleria macrantha syn. Koeleria cristata June grass
whitish spike-like panicles
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, Wisconsin native.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.” Meriwether Lewis collected this at Camp Chopunnish in Idaho on June 10, 1806 while waiting for snow melt to safely cross the Bitterroots on the expedition’s way home.
