This is, of course, an opinion from a very novice gardener here, but if you were to ask me I'd say that this is definitely ordinary... well, I'm not sure what it's specifically called, but ordinary crab grass? At any rate, it's found everywhere and often takes over in MY garden, so you'll want to probably uproot it. Careful of those darn seeds spreading. If you've got any animal friends (like, guinea pigs, cows, horses, sheep) who happen to live nearby, they'd love it. lol But again... I'm fairly new at this, so don't take my word for it.

Thanks for the info about planting the warm season grasses. As far as the half completed lasagna bed, I pulled back some today and saw Worms!! This is good. So now I feel a little better about pulling this back, amending planting holes and then puting the lasagna compost back on the ground. It should continue the positive improvements I just saw. The NC area I live in, called the RTP area, is notorious for clay soil and land that does not perk. We live in a geological formation that has soil created from weathered sandstone and shale. The big "no no" around here is adding sand. It will make concrete here. They do say you can use washed "sharp sand". I am going to amend my planting holes with a lot of organic material, dig extra wide holes and elevate the plantings. I do not think I will be able to raise the entire area. I will incorporate some of the lasagna bed compost. I am also researching gravel to add to the planting holes. I have read some about 1/4 -10 gravel. This is a mix of 1/4 inch and .196 inch washed gravel with no fines. The fines being the very small particles that help make concrete with the clay soil. Seems like this is being used a lot in the Pacific Northeast. The gravel folks around here have never heard of this but they have something very similar called 78 gravel. I read an article by "Wind Dancer Garden" where they indicated they use this in all of their gardens to help soil drainage, I read on another web site where they even use this to plant lawn grass. My main problem now is getting this clay soil dry enough to work. Got all of my grasses and I am ready to plant! One other thing, the m. Graziella and m. Silberfeder I bought from Sooner Nursey seemed to have come in good shape. Nice size plants for 1 gallon containers. I have never purchased mail order plants before. I may have got lucky in ordering early and getting leftovers from last year before they got their regular stock in for the year. These may be larger plants than their normal 1 gallon plants.

In your climate, I'd recommend against a fall planting. Miscanthus is a warm season grass and root growth halts as soon as soil temperatures cool. This makes it difficult to get established before the cold and wet of winter and fall planted miscanthus often fail from root rot or cold damage. Better to plant now, taking appropriate measures donn has outlined, or wait until spring.

One issue that needs to be brought forth - should service be required in, on or around the box you could loose the grasses that you planted. True this might not be an excessive investment but utility companies do have the rights to service their equipment. Any plants, hardscapes or buildings encroaching in the easement could be removed and not replaced at the discretion of the utility company. Like the others have stated you can dig a hole and drop in the grass and trim the turf with string trimmer or mower. You could remove sod, plant and mulch, which is what I would do. If there is room I would leave enough space for workers to service the box without having to cut back or down the grass when they do their work. Jake