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Cottage Gardens

How do you support your ornamental grasses when they flop?

12 years ago

I tried a couple dwarf ornamental grasses last year, but was less than impressed. This year I planted 6 purple fountain grasses and a variegated grass. They look great, but with the recent much-needed rain they've started to flop. Today I tied them up with twine and a stake, but I'm wondering if there's a better solution.

How do you manage yours?

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Comments (8)

cindysunshine
12 years ago
Hmmmmm none of mine flop. I have a couple miscanthus the sinenses "Morning Light" which grows in huge clumps in the pond bed, a big patch of switch grass with is a panicum I think I have the blue one "Heavy Metal "which gets big and gorgeous and some newer patches of the zebra striped miscanthus both a taller and shorter variety. They sprawl a bit as they dry in the fall especially the switch grass but really don't flop. Mine are in very poor soil out by the pond.
Thyme2dig NH Zone 5
12 years ago
I think grasses in general flop less in poorer soil which is why I get aggravated when I see gorgeous clumps of grasses at the grocery store standing straight and tall and mine flop all over! I have all of mine against my picket fence so I tie them up to the fence. I have also had a shepherd's hook pull double-duty with a decoration and then the grass tied to it.

With my peonies I started using those plastic-covered metal bamboo-like stakes (3 or 4 of them around the peony) and I wrap jute around them and that holds the peonies nicely. That might work for your grasses too and the grass would hide the poles and string.
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Thank you much everyone for this very interesting, educational, humorous thread!!! I came searching, as all I've had to deal with all my years, were tools of mowing engagements! Having grown up in as asphalt jungle (not the movie!) I fell in love with the smell of fresh cut grass! Am 4'10" (now I was told grew older to less1" ~ just my luck!) & for years before the advent of electric mowers I used to hop on top of the darned machine just to be able to start it ~ nearly lost my fingers reaching for clogged grass etc etc ~ didn't want to start machine over & over! So now you know ... I am that *priceless* image Carl18 vividly etched in your mind ~ *73y/o lady wrestling w/ Sawz-All* (by the way I think I'd love it!) Oh & I can always count on ken for injecting a bit to laugh! All I know about Ornamental Grass is admire them on people's landscape & am now for the first time brain-storming about what to do w/ a NE corner after cutting down a very old limb-dropping/breaking Crabapple tree where all the large Hostas now burning! No, not the regular Pampas ~ I know enough to avoid! I couldn't find the young neighbor to ask, what he planted that looks neat, upright, columnar, tallish & offers privacy (for me a blind from the dogs behind)! I googled & marked *Morn' Light, K Foerster, Heavy Metal, Dallas Blue* ~ any pros & cons would be appreciated! TIA!
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back in suburbia.. i fertd like the devil.. and everything fell over ... they just grew too lush ... then i moved to acreage ... on benign sand ... and i couldnt afford truckloads of fert .. [and the lazy part campy refers to.. lol ] and guess what.. everything grew a bit smaller.. and according to genetics.. was able to hold itself up ... also ... on some level ... i want to see nature .. even if i created the mess ... and i have a hard time relaxing .. with all those stakes and hoops everywhere ... so i convinced myself.. that even if they fall down.. that is what God intended.. and i enjoy them in whatever form they wish to take ... see above re: campys lazy theory ... and when something really starts irritating me.. i kill it and remove it ... rather than spend more money on it by buying stakes ... as a new owner ... and perhaps a newb in the garden .. get it very straight in your head ... and i will yell... IF IT DOESNT PLEASE YOU .. GET RID OF IT ... do not spend money and effort.. trying to fix the prior owners mistake.. it might be the single reason they sold and left .... lol.. and this is a very hard lesson to accept ... everything you remove... is an opportunity .. to make your own mistake... [and then move ... lol] .. i would rather spend $15 on something that makes my toes curl.. rather than investing in pieces of metal that will rust and rot away ... you need to spend this summer.. it being your first .. just sitting out there.. perhaps with adult beverages.. and getting a hate on for some of this stuff.. and making a list of what has to go ... and then get rid of it .... NOTHING.. and i mean nothing.. is static.. in a garden .. if you spend more than two minutes contemplating whether something really has value.. in that 2 minutes.. i could have gotten the shovel.. and root pruned it into the compost heap .. and then the next day.. been at the nursery.. to find something better ... ken
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Great Plains, here is that same photo with some IDs attached. It's amazing when I study it, how different it is now. This photo is probably the best it ever looked. In reality it was a re-seeding nightmare. Yarrow and blue fescue were taking over everything, and it just looked like a mess most of the time. The Karl Foester plants got sooo huge and even the once-per-year cutting back was a big chore. And there were zero shrubs to anchor the scene and provide some order. So I've kept the well-behaved grasses, added masses of coneflowers (most of which have planted themselves at this point), allowed well-behaved self-seeders (penstemon, blue flax, ratibida, some catananche), and added a lot of shrubs. I took out 100% of the yarrow and blue fescue because they can't seem to exist in moderation. I can imagine that you would have great luck with penstemon. I sure do love them in all their forms and colors. Before you get too excited about coneflowers (echinacea) beware that they drink a lot of water. More than I thought. But I still love them so they will stay, and in time they will be pushed out by the shrubs and there won't be quite so many. Are the photos you posted with the blue adobe house in the background your place? It's fantastic and so regionally appropriate! A garden in these parts must have ornamental grasses if you ask me!
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hello, how i did my grasses last year was to leave them in the original containers(4") and let them bulk up. In fact they got transplanted straight into the garden. In your case I am not sure how thickly your 72 cells germinated, but those might work out the best when you plant the whole plug into its permanent home. As for the number of leaves, I have never been a fan of waiting for a certain number of leaves. I transplant when the seedlings are manageable for me to handle. But, after saying that, grasses are monocots and have only 1 seed leaf, compared to the two seed leafs(dicots) which we are much more familiar with. So you will be seeing a different leaf configuration. That said....i would experiment, try a few different treatments, and have fun and see what works. good luck m
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eightzoner
12 years ago
There's a Sydney Eddison article in Fine Gardening (August?) about staking ornamental grasses and other plants. So I guess even super green thumbs like her have to do it sometimes. :-)

Sheri
natal
Original Author
12 years ago
Sheri, I'll have to check that out on the newsstand. Thanks for mentioning it.

Thyme, I wondered about the soil issue. All the grasses planted commercially seem fine.
Min3 South S.F. Bay CA
12 years ago
how about a tomato cage painted a greeny-brown? you just
hold the clump tight together at the top and put the cage down over it. i have done that with other things.
min
tinam61
12 years ago
No flopping here either LOL. Maybe it is just all the moisture in the soil and they will be fine once it dries up a bit? I've never staked or tied up any of my grasses. Just recently bought a clump of zebra grass. I love purple fountain grass - in the ground or in a mixed container.
natal
Original Author
12 years ago
Two stops today and no Fine Gardening on the newsstand.

The twine and stakes seem to be doing the trick for now. We've been in an extreme drought and even though I've been watering religiously that can't compare to the real thing which we finally got this week. Might have something to do with it.
natal
Original Author
12 years ago
Sheri, picked up a copy today. Thanks again for the heads up! I'll be shopping end of season sales this year for a few grow-through supports.

Btw, any of you who still read books vs. Kindles & Nooks ... Barnes & Noble is having a wicked sale on hardbacks. Dh bought 8 or 9 for under $60 ... cheaper than most paperbacks.

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