No way am I giving up my non-native grasses - this was the view from my kitchen window a few minutes ago, mostly Miscanthus.

and on November 9. That's a native Panicum on the left and a Miscanthus on the right. Panicums are quietly beautiful earlier in the season, but have faded out here by now, except for those with red foliage.

I've found four (4) little Miscanthus seedlings in the last few years - not a problem in my yard, and I'm surrounded by woods or beach so any escapee wouldn't have much of a chance getting established. I've read that the main problem with escapees has been along highway medians where the wild type was deliberately planted and they have empty space to spread into.

On the other hand I refuse to plant bamboo, particularly the running type. People talk about how you can contain the roots by planting them with deep barriers, but what happens when you move or no longer garden? Will the next home owner and/or gardener fuss over the bamboo?

Claire

This is a website I bookmarked when I first heard about Miscanthus invasiveness and got worried enough to google.

Are Ornamental Forms or Cultivars of Miscanthus Invasive?

Claire

Trying to be responsible, I planted 3 little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) this spring, or maybe last fall. They're ... sweet, but certainly no match for the showy miscanthus. I felt less enthusiastic about them when I saw them growing *all over* the "wildflower meadow" on the campus where I work. They can't be called invasive if they're native, but if they invade my lawn or other parts of the garden I may need to borrow your bobcat. They flopped, too, which was odd because they're in a very dry location, in blasting full sun. Maybe the soil's too rich there, or it's too sheltered and they didn't prepare themselves for wind?

I also have bunny grass, Pennisetum alopecuroides, which is another non-native, but seems very contained - no sprouts anywhere to be found. I keep Stipa tenuissima in a pot and it has never produced a seed (or flower) probably because it's not too happy with its location. That one is knopwn to be a problem out west, but seems harmless here. I love the fine texture of the foliage and the way it moves in the wind.

None of my grasses are as showy as Claire's, partly because they're much smaller. I have a hard time situating tall grasses in my gardens because I still haven't figured out how to include that form in my design (to the extent that there IS a design).

I love grasses in the gardens, both native and non-native. In some gardens, I am trying to create the effect of a stylized meadow, mixing grasses and forbs together, although this is an ongoing effort and I haven't perfected it yet. Grasses make great "fillers" and are useful to hide the dying foliage of some earlier blooming perennials, such as Monarda. And the variation and coloring in the grass flowers are lovely - I had a grand time this fall cutting grass plumes and mixing them in floral bouquets!

The more ornamental Miscanthus varieties are in the front gardens, partly because they are get so HUGE and are useful for screening from the street and wind. For me, they do provide a great deal of "winter interest". In the back yard gardens, I use exclusively native grasses - and enjoy watching the birds pick through the gardens eating the seeds. And there are several species of butterflies (Skippers) that use grasses as host plants. Oh, my cat likes to chew on the grass too! hehe

None of the Miscanthus has ever re-seeded here, although as DTD pointed out, many non-native grasses have turned out to be pests in the rangelands out west. Oregon and Idaho have banned shipping any grasses to those states.

Grasses were a revelation for me, discovering them fairly
late in my garden career. . .how I wish I'd known more about them when I was gardening on a rooftop in Manhattan!
Here in my relatively small gardens in the 'burbs, there's not enough room for "massing", so each has to be a focal point - Miscanthus 'Morning Light" is the absolute "star",
but an 8-foot Miscanthus sinensis 'Variegata' comes in a close second, but of the dozen or so others, only the
Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats) has every done any seeding. About the only negative I can imagine about using grasses in a mixed garden, might be that their bulk
abruptly vanishes in early March when I cut them all down -
but at the very beginning of a new season, and with so much quickly coming on, that loss seems minor to me. . .
and I'm really excited about the new addition next year,
Saccharum ravennae (Hardy Pampas Grass), a 10-foot giant for the lower left corner of the property !

Incidentally, my introduction to the world of grasses was
courtesy of Piet Oudolf, who has a number of fine books
out, and was also the designer of the remarkable new gardens in Battery Park, in lower Manhattan - if you ever
visit, don't fail to walk just slightly north to see the
startling succession of gardens along the Hudson in Battery
Park City.

Carl

I have the Miscanthus grasses planted extensively where the northwest winds are fiercest in winter - they make a fine windscreen. I've also noticed that birds eat the Miscanthus seeds, so the grasses are useful for food in a wildlife habitat. This isn't true for many non-native plants; particularly where nectar is important.

This House Sparrow was chowing down on a Miscanthus variegata seedhead a month ago.

When I lived in NYC, I would sometimes ride my bike over to Battery Park City and have lunch in the gardens along the Hudson. Definitely worth a visit, as Carl says.

Claire

Claire,
Great link, I particularly thought All documentation of invasiveness, naturalization, and self-seeding to date, which can be very confusing, concerns the SPECIES, NOT THE CULTIVARS. was interesting. Your little bird photo is very cute, you must have one heck of a zoom to get so close.
terrene,
Grasses make great "fillers" and are useful to hide the dying foliage of some earlier blooming perennials, such as Monarda. Interesting I never thought about that.
Dtd,
I keep Stipa tenuissima in a pot and it has never produced a seed (or flower) probably because it's not too happy with its location. That one is knopwn to be a problem out west, but seems harmless here. I love the fine texture of the foliage and the way it moves in the wind. That does look like a nice one. What do you do with it during the winter?
Carl,
Saccharum ravennae (Hardy Pampas Grass), a 10-foot giant for the lower left corner of the property ! Great structure... your *little* lot in the burb must be bigger than your letting on.

Miscanthus sinensis is a scourge - don't plant it if you don't have it, and try to rid yourself of it before you are sorry.

Did I mention that this is not one of my faves?

I wonder if anyone has checked more recent research and/or knowledge generated since the cited report (which references papers dated only to 1999). Before I'm cast too scurrilously and ostracized from this forum, let me say a bit. I know Harold Pellet (one of the authors) personally; he's a good guy, and he wrote about what was known at the time. A lot more is known today. One might find research written by another U of Minnesota faculty (about Miscathus giganteus) which speaks to how these genera behave, and how fecundity and thus invasiveness is based on the length of growing season and mature seed.

And what is known is this: individually and alone, many of these plants are benign - self-infertile, as it were. The problem arises when these plants are not alone. Cross-pollination occurs when dissimilar individuals of the same species are in proximity, as in many if not most gardens. "Wild" in the sense used above means unnamed seedlings. 'Variegata', 'Morning Light', 'Cosmopolitan', what-have-you, are just named seedlings that have an ornamental quality that someone deemed worthy of vegetative reproduction and that the gardening public has found attractive enough to purchase.

Put these together, and you have the propensity (if not the guarantee) of every seed produced being fertile. Then it just becomes dissemination. Maybe some of your gardens don't have any of the right conditions for a Miscanthus seed to germinate, but I'd wager that you aren't controlling where these seed blow to, much less where any animal might distribute them.

This is exactly the same set of circumstances that has set up much of this country for "the coming scourge of pears", due to the widespread planting of Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford', when it was pretty much the sole clone available. By itself, it was a fine ornamental that rarely set fruit and provided much interest until it split apart. Once "new and improved" clones started joining it in the landscape, voilà! Fruit started forming from every flower, as one might expect from a species in the Rosaceae family that thrives in orchards with cross-pollination.

Now, one doesn't need to travel far to see the "fruits" of that folly. Seedling Pyrus calleryana are popping up in every waste or unmanaged area within a bird's poop of an ornamental pear planting.

Will this happen in every single possible gardening condition? Of course not, but is that sufficient reason to say "I'll have what I want - damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" I believe that isn't showing much foresight or responsibility, especially when ultimately we are not in control of what happens when we're gone (or even a lot of what happens while we're here). Plants get traded; climate changes for better and worse; we move away from what we may have carefully tended; and weather/animals do things without us noticing.

BTW, is that sparrow from around NE? If so, how did it ever manage before? I suspect that it would much rather (as well as a lot more of the native NE fauna) have more of what NE is famous for, instead of solely making do with an introduction.

Final comment: I have had up to six different Miscanthus sinensis clones on my property, including all the ones mentioned here. I am currently attempting to eradicate them, and all their offspring which have shown a remarkable tenacity to duel it out in establishment among dense fescue pasture despite droughty clay soils. 'Graziella' and 'Zebrinus' were especially eloquent and rapturous plants.

But then, entomologists find beauty and intrigue among the cockroaches.

I don't really have anything to add to this discussion, as I don't grow grasses, but I wanted to just pop in and say how very interested I am in this thread, and I've been following closely. I'm pretty much just like Katy, thinking grasses were a trend, (a corporate office building trend, to boot!) and just now am coming around to admiring them, but also a bit hesitant to plant because of the admittedly little I've read about them. So this thread has been of great interest to me.

Between the fact that I have a pot ghetto (which was dwindling nicely but now thanks to Deb (Cloud9) has suddenly grown in size again!), the fact that I take forever to get around to buying anything, the fact that I can't design a garden bed to save my life (which is one reason why I put off buying additions to my garden), and the fact that at this very moment I am looking out my window enjoying my neighbor's tall ornamental grass waving in the breeze, I will probably not be adding any grasses to my garden soon, but I am the type to research as thoroughly as I can, so this thread is appreciated.

Katy, I absolutely love your "avocado-colored appliance" analogy, lol!

:)
Dee

VV,
Thanks for providing me with something to ponder as I was shackled to the oven for the last few days. I particularly found And what is known is this: individually and alone, many of these plants are benign - self-infertile, as it were. The problem arises when these plants are not alone. Cross-pollination occurs when dissimilar individuals of the same species are in proximity, as in many if not most gardens. "Wild" in the sense used above means unnamed seedlings. 'Variegata', 'Morning Light', 'Cosmopolitan', what-have-you, are just named seedlings that have an ornamental quality that someone deemed worthy of vegetative reproduction and that the gardening public has found attractive enough to purchase. very helpful in attempting to understand all of this. I cant help but to agree with all that you have written but wonder why arent we all on the same page? My involvement in the world of horticulture is limited to my own back yard so if you will explain to me why so many folks could still be referring to old data, isnt there something in place that would replace and update information?
A current post on"Garden Rant" referred to Rick Darkes recent lecture in DC on grasses and Miscanthus in particular which seems to be in contrast to the information you have provided us. This quote from the rant post Recently I was one of the capacity audience at the National Arboretum to hear Rick talk about grasses and a lot more. He showed us photos of Miscanthus growing on rooftops and filling whole fields in Japan, where it's native and indisputably gorgeous. And what about growing it here? Rick says there's "nothing immoral" about growing it here, as long as it's a late-bloomer like 'Morning Light' that's effectively sterile. To me the reference to early and late blooming grasses just clouds the waters, as you so eloquently mentioned we have no control over what our neighbors may be growing and how the seeds are disseminated.
I would also like to mention that I have shouted on many occasions that I am a fortunate gardener who has five independent nurseries within a fifteen mile circumference that I love and respect.BUT.the first time I heard about the possibility of Miscathus escaping was from my nurseryman who continues to sell more than one variety of this plant. There seems to be a disconnect in the horticultural world and certainly commerce is most often the obvious culprit but in this case I am not so sure the only one.
I read and re-read what you wrote then sat trun down whose interest in plant life is nothing more than the obligatory effort to stay involved in the passions of the woman he loves. His response was he never realized that the results of incest in the plant world could come so close to equaling the damage of incest within the human race. I have already promised a friend that I would pass these grasses to a friend when I rip them out next spring now I cant help but wonder if a few years from now she will be mumbling my name while shaking her fist in the air each spring.

The 'trick' in late season grasses is that they will rarely have an opportunity to ripen seed before the season ends. This was explained to me at Mohonk in regards to a particularly evilly behaved pennisetum. About half the years, it doesn't even bloom since the growing season is so much shorter than it requires.

BTW, this is a noteworthy difference between eastern and mid-western growing conditions. We have a noticably cooler and shorter growing season.

The short growing season here, and planting late blooming grasses, are good points.

I've had a Miscanthus Cabaret for three falls now and it's never bloomed for me. It's a beautiful big variegated grass that gives a real presence in the garden.

I asked John at Katsura Gardens about it, and he said his Cabaret at home blooms (he lives in Plymouth also).

mad gallica: was that Pennisetum Moudry? I remember loving it at the NY Botanical Garden, but I read that it seeded all over so I didn't get it.

Claire

Yep, if IIRC it was Moudry. This was a couple of years ago.

Thank all of you for allowing me to infiltrate your forum, despite ranting about plants that you are gardening with sans difficulty. To me, the problem is exactly the concept that gardeners like to share the wealth, and the receiver of bounty may find the behavior to be far different than the donor. That's how invasive species get started unintentionally.

Why aren't we all on the same page? Some of it is commercial ventures like to make money as easily as possible. Which NE states have had to ban the production and sale of certain non-native ornamentals (like Berberis) because vendors wouldn't quit selling them, despite the pretty obvious effect this species was having on natural lands and plant communities? It is really hard to overcome this tendency, as well as the one where people can't fathom that an ornamental plant can behave badly.

That's why I made the cockroach comment. I don't know too many folks that would defend these varmints (or rats) where they threaten our humble abodes. I consider most of the invasive species of plants to be "rooted roaches."

Some people live too far north for roaches to be a problem, but...I bet they wouldn't have them around, even one, even if it couldn't reproduce! And they sure wouldn't share them with their friends.

But gardeners are going to do what they are going to do. I just believe in providing the information - for them to do what they will with it - and not belabor and/or overmoralize. Well, maybe a little bit.

A long time ago I made a comparison to growing known invasives to use of lead-based paint. As a society, we've decided that the dangers outweighed the benefits of a very good product, because the dangers couldn't be quashed and the danger was long-lasting. This might be the way to think about some of these plants that currently might eke by on current climate and growing seasons, which we know very well are not static.

I mentioned above that I had planted a number of selections of Miscanthus sinensis around the Valley here. When I read up on their propensity to escape, and observed it myself around central KY, I determined that these plants would not be long for this world. I am just now reaching the end of that endeavor. I burned several large clumps in place last weekend to destroy the seedheads, and managed to singe two of my very nicest Ilex opaca ('Big Daddy' and 'Judy Evans') in the process. They had made quite the garden pairing. Today, out on the tundra, I cut back all the clumps that I could find that were the escapes and burned them. In the spring, I'll have to dislodge the root wads, or hit them with a graminicide to finish the job.

I drive by the site of a former nursery that specialized in ornamental grasses and rhododendrons (what a KY mix!) daily on my way to work in Louisville. This nursery occupied about twenty acres, and that field (observable from I-64 in Shelby County) is now one vast mass of Miscanthus sinensis. You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it happen. I will get a picture of this site this winter. If someone cares to re-educate me on how to post a picture in a thread here, I'll share the scene.

I took a read through the Garden Rant link. Some notable statements:

"...environmentally neutral - neither a detractor nor a contributor."

"He's also friends with Doug Tallamy...

Well, I know Rick Darke personally too. He's lectured several times in Louisville, and I took him for a ride through Cherokee Park one winter. He's a fine fellow, and I admire his ethic and design/gardening style. He has quite the eye for arranging native and non-native plants in a way where you wouldn't notice that those plants wouldn't normally belong together. I don't agree with him on the subject of Miscanthus, though, for the reasons I've mentioned above.

Also, if one of your gardening goals is to contribute to supporting native systems and local fauna, a non-contributor (which could be replaced by a native contributor) doesn't seem like the choice to make.

Saying he's friends with Doug Tallamy is really throwing up a smoke screen! I just listened to a long lecture presented by Doug at the national ASLA conference in Philadelphia in early October. What a great presentation! He has the greatest photos of bugs you may ever want to see, especially the caterpillars.

The thrust of his presentation: every native plant you put in the ground (especially ones fed on by native caterpillars) is a huge leverage to supporting those populations, as well as the rest of the fauna that feed on the caterpillars! Think about it...

All the birds that eat caterpillars, and feed their young, etc., need those beasts around to support their life cycle. If the plants the caterpillars eat are not there, then they don't exist to support the birds, the birds don't raise as many young, and you see the spiral that begins. I highly recommend everyone take a look-see at getting Doug Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home: How Native plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens (Tallamy, D.W. 2007. Timber Press. Portland, Oregon). You can see more about the text at http://bringingnaturehome.net and you can delve into all things Doug at http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/ if you haven't had enough.

Apocalyptic? I don't mean to be, and I don't demean gardeners who plant what they like. I just think that there is a lot of opportunity for illumination, and every little bit helps to see the light and the big picture.

Runk, trun is a wise man, in more ways than one...

On another site, I've often offered up proposals for plant naming; trun has inspired another.

Miscanthus sinensis Intensely Incestuous

About inserting photos in a thread, everyone has their own favorite method. This is mine.

You don't have to set up an account at a hosting site if you use TinyPic.com.

The photo files on your computer must be in a format such as jpeg or jpg.

Using Tiny Pic, you hit the "Choose File" button and it searches your computer desktop. Choose a photo file then select a size ("Resize" button), and then UPLOAD NOW.

When the file is uploaded, copy the HTML tag, not the IMG tag.

Paste the HTML tag in your post.

This is the easiest way I know.

Claire

Part of the question is what are you trying to preserve, and why? Everywhere I've ever lived, left to its own devices, would turn back into climax deciduous forest. Climax deciduous forest has been described as an ecological desert. If you ever have a chance to visit some, go. There is a piece in Cook Forest, PA, and a few scattered around Maine. There is practically nothing green remotely close to the forest floor. Lately, there has been a lot of speculation that this had to be heavily managed by Native Americans because otherwise it's about a few million square miles of large trees, squirrels, and very little else.

To put this into a bit of perspective, something I've been hearing my entire life is that at the beginning of the 20th century, deer had been hunted out of existence in Pennsylvania, and the herds were restocked with deer from Michigan. This is in a state with enormous stretches of undeveloped, very thinly settled forests. One of the few ways this makes sense is that for some reason, enormous amounts of these forests were inherently inhospitable to deer. There is extremely little ground forage in climax forests.

Everything out there currently is a managed landscape. Among wild animals, there are winners and losers. The big losers are anything that needs large areas of totally enclosed canopy. The winners are the animals we are familiar with.

VV,
Your analogy of Rooted Roaches has forever changed how I look at Miscanthus sinensis. Actually the seed heads swaying with the wind look more and more like cockroach antennae.
While reading your description of escaped Miscanthus sinensis in the valley I was suddenly reminded of an example of this plant behaving badly in your neck of the woods and understood what fueled your passion on this issue, recently while driving through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park I originally thought the grasses along the road side in mass were Miscanthus sinensis but dismissed the thought because after all I was in a National Park. What a shame. Memo to President Elect Obama lets throw some stimulus funds at our National Parks.

Mad Gal,
Very interesting thoughts regarding climax deciduous forest taking over any unmanaged space in New England and supplanting most if not all understory plants. But I might argue that you have neglected to consider how fire has and will continue to in the blink of an eye edit the landscape for generations.

KT asked "Do you really think they are all that interesting in the winter?"

This morning, as I looked out at the turkeys grazing in the field, I was distracted by the early morning sun on a Miscanthus Little Kitten, complemented by the snow.

The grasses are still a joy to me in winter, especially since the winterberry fruits are gone.

Claire

Of course, an unexpected wet, heavy, snowfall can wreak havoc on your ornamental grasses.

In that case, you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off... and try to hang in until spring.

Claire

Hi gals. I've been south since Thanksgiving, so cannot say what the pennesetum by the lamp post and steps up to the yard look like now. I figure if it provides fuel, then it will replace the burnt-out light bulb on the post, so someone can get to the front door without tripping.

That clump of grass out there has already gone through one winter before this, and it didn't look like much with the first snowfall weighing it down. When we returned last spring, I chopped it off and saw new growth in the middle.

I also put in, down by the street where I figure the salt from the street and the driveway snowblowing will keep it rather sedate, a clump of zebra grass. Horizontally striped spikes with yellow bands through bright green. I'll let you know in the spring how it survived. What I'm anxiously waiting to see is whether the rugosa roses make it.

Missing you folks. I was wondering what kind of garden action was occurring this month with all the frigid temps. You all are full of courage.

I have many grasses in my yard, and the only one that has been a problem in terms of spreading to the woods is Chasmanthium latifolium, Northern sea oats.

Please help me understand this---Because it is a native plant it is not considered invasive. Yet,in my yard, it would displace other less aggressive native plants if not for the intervention of the gardener's hand.

Might the answer be that in different situations (climate, soil, moisture, PH etc.) plants perform (and spread) in totally different ways?

mollyjenning, you make a very sensible point. The answer to whether a plant should be considered a problem (to avoid the term "invasive") is really "Well, it depends....", or "Compared to what?"

I'm not going to go there; I just want to note a new variegated cultivar of Chasmanthium latifolium, "River Mist" from the Plant Delights Nursery.

I avoided buying this for a few months, but gave in yesterday. I was going to buy several, but I succumbed to the old "well, I'm on the website anyway so I might as well look around". This is always a hazard on the PDN site. $100 later I escaped with one River Mist and three other plants I can't live without. Right.

Claire