Last year I bought two large pots of the Black Mondo grass at an end of season sale for $4 each. I knew they were annuals here, but thought I would just enjoy them for a short time. Just before a hard frost, I sunk the pots in the ground and mulched them. They never even died back. They stayed black and fresh looking through snow and sub-zero temps - and I am in zone 4a (northern WI). I am going to try and plant them in a sheltered area and mulch heavily and see if they make it through another winter. Maybe I will mulch and cover them with rose cones. Thanks for all the great ideas. -Sprout

Hi Michiele, Landscaping around a pool that is in full sun, or at least in lots and lots of sun, can be very challenging. Often the heat that reflects from the pool and the pool deck are very hard on plants. When you are landscaping near a pool area, I think grass is always best because it can take the most abuse, from being walked on, having beach balls bounce through it, etc. To keep weeds to a minimum, put down a good quality woven landscape fabric, plant your grasses and add some mulch. When choosing a mulch, it is often better to use some sort of stone like river rock or lava rock because bark mulches tend to blow into the pool. Interplanting a taller ground cover like ornamental grass with a shorter ground cover can be difficult. Creeping ground covers like Asian Jasmine or Boston Ivy may tend to 'climb' up the clumps of grass. If you have a taller ornamental grass, then a shorter ground cover may get too shaded by the taller grasses and not fill in as well as you would like. You might try ice plant or creeping sedum. They also are creepers more than vining climbers so they would be easier to maintain. Both are very tough and can handle the reflected heat from the pool's concrete or stone surround. If you are going to have a taller form of ornamental grass, you could use ornamental blue fescue, fiber optic grass or blue-eyed grass as the shorter plant to fill in around the larger ones. It can be hard to combine ornamental grasses with shorter ground covers underneath them because the shorter plants can be overwhelmed by the larger grasses. A mixed planting of ornamental grasses, creeping groundcovers and dwarf shrubs can be used quite effectively if the plants are in scale with one another. You might go to the website for High Country Gardens (I think it is www.highcountrygardens.com) and look at their ground covers. They have a lot of uncommon plants that are suited to tough conditions. Good luck, Dawn

here in holliswood (queens) nyc it has been hardy for me, the only thing is its extremely slow-growing, for me! i wanted it to spread but its not doing so, so the 1 gallon clump of VARIEGATED LIRIOPE is just staying the same little dwarf, barely 6" high and 6" wide, clump of grass so far=L on a positive note, it stayed evergreen as did variegated acorus did for me. which is always a plus with ornamental grasses believe i'm in z6b, too

Khalid: Thank you for those nice pics. & I'm impressed at how large and healthy the leaves are. Your Chartreuse de Parme is beautiful, same with Belle E. Own-root roses are much smaller than grafted, and my cold-zone makes roses 1/2 the size of warm-zone. So I have to go with REALL BIG roses if I want own-root in a cold-zone. Some of the wimpy own-roots like Love Song, Bishop Castle, Jude the Obscure are sold for $40 each at Heirloom roses since it takes longer for them to root. The problem with our winter & growing indoor: STERILE potting soil is used, that doesn't have mycorrhyzal fungi for fast root-growth. Rooting OUTDOOR with fast-drainage & loamy soil plus mycorrhyzal fungi resulted in THICKER roots for me. But I have to mix that in a month is advance. If you click on the below link, you'll see how Jobes' fertilizer NPK 3-5-3 (with bacteria & fungi) makes a big difference in Julia Child's flowering. Ingredients in Jobe's fertilizer NPK 3-5-3 are "Protein Hydrolysate from feather meal, bone meal, composted poultry manure, sulfate of potash and various bacteria, endomycorrhizae, ectomycorrhzae and archaea." https://www.amazon.com/Jobes-09426-Organic-Granular-Fertilizer/dp/B002RBGO0U/ref=lp_3032347011_1_10?srs=3032347011&ie=UTF8&qid=1477666753&sr=8-10 Here's what Jobe's fertilizer for roses contain: " A consortium of three microorganisms - bacteria mycorrhizal fungi plus a unique species of archaea that breaks down complex materials." That the same microbes in compost. One person reported the best result with rooting was with coco-coir (for fast drainage) and compost. I like home-made compost better than store-bought-compost (mostly cow-manure with antibiotics, salt, and that nasty quick-lime added to deodorize).