Wisconsin Public Television University Place  Annual Grasses for the Garden and Container  Mark Dwyer  2/9/2013 UP835  cc >> Hi, everyone. Welcome to Annual Grasses. Again, my name's Mark from Rotary Gardens. We do hope you'll come visit the gardens. Briefly, we've been around for 24 years. We're 20 acres of city-owned property just down in Janesville. So, door to door, Alliant Center back to Janesville, and Rotary Gardens is only 45 minutes. So, if you've missed 24 years of our history, we do hope you'll come and enjoy the gardens. Our soul mission is to provide horticultural education and appreciation. For those that have come to the gardens, you've seen a lot of our seasonal plants. 

We do 150,000 annuals representing 900 varieties each year. Lots of annual grasses, hence the topic. We have 3,000 varieties of perennials, lots of trees and shrubs. We want you to come and enjoy and see what we're doing. So pick up a calendar of events, and, again, join in what we're doing. I've been there for 15 years, and it's been great for me. I started when I was 10, obviously. [LAUGHTER] This is a Pennisetum villosum. This is called feathertop grass. Absolutely beautiful. 

I'll show it to you a little bit later, but when I've done this topic in the past, the question comes up, why annual grasses? Why should I spend $3, $4, $5 on a grass that's ultimately going to die when I get hard frost? Well, you're going to see why because these grasses, like any of you annuals, offer immediate impact, color, texture, movement. They're wonderful in containers. You'll see massive grasses for the back of the border. You'll see diminutive ones for the side of the little container. And we'll show you some annual grasses for shadier locations as well. So, they run the gamut of coloration and textures, and when we talk about ornamental grasses, particularly perennials in the landscape, hopefully you have 12 seasons of interest in your winter garden. You have grasses you're looking out upon. Although, recent snows have flattened a lot of them, but these annual grasses are a quick way for color. And do consider these in your recipe for success in your own gardens. So we'll go through at a pretty good clip. 

This is the ubiquitous lawn, and I won't preach about all the inputs into this lawn, and we have these are Rotary Gardens for all our outdoor weddings. And imagine last summer what some of you were doing. Hopefully you let you lawn go dormant, but we had to keep these nice and green with lots of water, fertilizer, etc. All the pollution we're creating with our mowers. The implications of this type of lawn in America are staggering, but that's a topic for another time. We're going to talk about grasses that have some maintenance, but their impact is a little better. And lawns like this, again, are a lot of work. And we all running out and sports and seeing a green turf like this, but there's a lot behind what you see here. Missouri Botanic Garden does turf grass trials. I know UW Madison has their turf grass facility. 

Lots of research in our turf grasses for traffic, for walking, etc, but we're going to see those that are real ornamental. And of course, when you see something like this on a sunny day, what a waste of water. This is near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Of course, you see native grasses at the Curtis Prairie, one of the best prairies in the country at UW Arboretum. So grasses have a long history. At Olbrich Botanic Garden here in Madison, this is Prairie dropseed, a perennial grass. But look at it uses a textural component just with a little path bisecting this, and it's the texture that really speaks. So if you're lacking grasses in general, do consider perennial grasses for their merit. A lot of them have beautiful inflorescence or seed heads, like this Miscanthus. Always research your grasses, particularly perennials. 

Be proactive with your research on any plant before you put it in the ground. You'll avoid those issues of plants that are running or spreading that you wish you've never planted. We have some at Rotary Gardens that we're still dealing with 15 years after my mis-thought-out appropriation and planting. So many of our plant failures are related to not knowing the plant before installation. And we're all guilty of plunk and run mentality, putting plants in. Understand we need to really know what those plants need. It's a two-way street. We have an expectation of our plants to look great. They expect you to provide proper soil, a good space to live, decent neighbors, perhaps those that like the same conditions, sunlight, water, soil type, etc. and I won't belabor perennial grasses for very long, but there's many, many selections. And you can see the value as a screen or as a focal point or a textural component. 

And even in winter, Olbrich here a couple years ago, dynamite. This garden would be nothing in the winter without these grasses. And sure there's colorful stems and berries, etc. Chanticleer out in Pennsylvania, another beautiful garden. Look at the repeated use of upright grasses, like feather reed grass, and there's also Mexican feather grass, the wispy, smaller grass. So, lots of good things. Grasses are the most widely distributed group of plants on the planet. 9,000 species. All five continents. 1400 species in the US. 

Most of our most important economic plants, our grains, are grasses. You see here corn, wheat, rice, oats, etc. On the right, that's bamboo, which is one of the most utilitarian grasses in the world. And if you've ever seen a mature bamboo grove, they're absolutely beautiful, and we all know bamboo has a lot of uses and is a renewable material. This is in San Diego. So, again, we're still talking about perennial grasses, but when we talk about things like sorghum and wheat and corn, lots of economic importance. Last year we did a grains of the world collection where we grew 12 of the most common grains grown worldwide, including oats. Back to annual grasses. On the right here we have fireworks, which you'll see in a little bit. This is a nice, beautiful Pennisetum. 

But what the impacts? What are the merits of these grasses? Why should you plant them? Well, they have beautiful color, texture, and these are necessarily separate features. They may have all of these features. Inflorescences, again, that's essentially the flower/seed heads. Seasonal transitions, there are annual grasses that will go through a color change as some of our perennial grasses do. So there might be a seasonal variation in the appearance of that grass. The combination potential is limitless. Whether you're using your annual grasses in a container like this, a sunny border, what have you, they're limitless. What do they offer? They offer scale in a garden. Here this variegated giant reed in the container. You'll see that later as well, but it's offering scale in a very large container with a six to seven-foot tall variegated plant. 

They offer form, and that's shape. All plants have some sort of form. Think about grasses that open and billow outwards or grasses that are upright. They have a shape. Some our mounded or rounded. That shape becomes important as a visual component in the landscape, and sometime the repetition of that form is vital as well, whether it's a grass or another type of plant. Keep in mind with grasses that tend to fan out or are vase-shaped, always keep in mind the real estate above ground because you see them come out of the ground, perennials in particular, you see this little silhouette, keep in mind that it's going to billow open and needs elbow room. And some of our annual grasses are the same way. Movement, sound, these are components that are added to the landscape with these grasses. Solid winter interest, particularly, of course, with perennials. 

Back to annual grasses. This is that Mexican feather reed grass, one of the laciest, finest textured grasses. Not hardy, of course, but look how textural this is. This is when it's blooming. This is at the Denver Botanic Garden, and it did not despise the summer heat, which is substantial in Denver. This is when it starts to form its inflorescences later in the summer. Sometimes in our cooler summers you don't get this look. You to know that. In Wisconsin you need a really hot summer to get this, but you'll get the texture, which is beautiful. Here's a mound with lots of this Mexican feather grass planted. 

Lots of movement. Here at Rotary Gardens it's used as a component in one of our seasonal compositions with yellows and blues. We punctuate annual grasses or pepper them through most of our landscape, our annual installations. So, I'm frequently ordering upwards of 2,000 various annual grasses just to use around the gardens. Here it is again softening the edge of a pathway. So, top notch. And this was a hot summer where it actually started to flower for us. Combined with yarrow. Again, we mix annuals with many of our perennial combinations, and I think you see the texture. Ponytail is a variety of the stipa which is identical to the straight species. 

So, when you see ponytail or Mexican feather grass, they really are identical. And here it is very late in the season. So I've shown you a lot of slides of this same plant. It has merit in a container. Weather it's a solitary component or an edger. This is what it looked like in December. It's dead, totally dead. We haven't had snow to cover it yet, but to me that's still kind of neat. It looks like a head of hair coming out of the ground there. [LAUGHTER] And, again, used at Chanticleer. 

So, Mexican feather grass, when we buy it it's in little two-inch pots. It's two inches tall. We get growth to the 18-, 20-inch range in the course of a summer. It's on your list somewhere. Again, I apologize again, but it is listed there. And a new one called Capriccio which is just a smidge taller. Looks very similar as well. The dead sedges, now you see these are garden centers. They're all over the place. They're called dead sedges because their natural color is an orangy brown. 

So they looked at, of course, they're entirely alive. I do want to mention, as you're searching for these things, always patronize your local garden centers first. That's absolutely imperative. It's important to keep those businesses going. We love the dead sedges not only for their color and their texture but their value in containers. Here at Olbrich in Madison, they just used a couple different dead sedges in these containers, and I think very effectively. Here's Toffee Twist which is a drooping sedge. So you have the bronzy-like appearance, beautiful in a hanging basket or the edge of a container. This is late in the season. There were actually plants between these, but we planted them as a ground cover. 

So we have these drooping sedges forming essentially an annual ground cover. And I thought that was very textural. I have to tell you, when we've had these warm winters and a lot of snow cover, we've seen some of these actually come back. Most are listed as zone seven, but we've had some interesting winters recently. Last winter was no challenge for a lot of plants. And here's a top view of this same plant. Here used in a container with coral bells and hostas. So, these are great as edgers in your mixed containers. So the container potential is important. Now, remember, I alluded to it earlier, when you're grouping plants, whether it's in a border or in a container, you want plants that have the same requirements. 

So, in this case, these plants are all okay with the same soil, the same moisture. They're getting watered at the same time and the same solar exposure. So, by grouping plants with similar needs throughout your landscape, you don't have plants that are failing or having issues where the neighbors are not. And that saves on your maintenance. It goes without saying. There's another dead sedge, drooping sedge in the background. In the foreground, that's blue fescue which is a perennial. But look at just single grasses in containers. And I think these seats are even more inviting just from a simple container with that drooping sedge. Bronzita is a variety of the drooping sedge. 

It has a little more orangy to it. It tends to be in the 12-inch range but looks very much like what you saw with Toffee Twist. Carex buchananii, you have to look a little close in this container composition. The yellow and orange you see is Colias. That's freckles. That's a variety. There's a lot of trailing plants, sweet potato vine, etc, but you see a very lacy grass coming out through the middle of this. That's leather leaf sedge, this Carex buchananii. Thirty inches tall. Very textural. 

Brownish-orange, as you see. Think about how often in our containers we're told to put something big and solid in the middle. I don't feel that needs to be the case. In this case we have a very airy centerpiece. It lends scale. It's not domineering, and what's nice about it is this entire container is foliage. We're not reliant on any flowers. We do that at Rotary Gardens. We don't have a lot of time to dead head and pinch things back, so we do a lot of foliage. And these dead sedges are vital to that effort. 

Here's, again, Carex buchananii with Alternanthera. Here it is in a solitary container. We buy this in four-inch pots, typically. And, again, you get some nice size, and you're welcome to group them. That looks so nice and, again, as a centerpiece. The container you see there is PVC pipe. Years ago, we've been using PVC pipe as a container, and, of course, watering was very difficult to keep these wet, but we had this repeating element of upright painted PVC with these grasses spilling out. It was very effective as a repeated vertical element. Here's more use of PVC pipe. Repurposed, by the way. 

We don't buy it. We find it and then reuse it. But notice the centerpieces of all these pipes. There's only 18 inches of soil in those, by the way. We make sure they're perfectly upright, but notice in the landscape approach, this is a repetition of a vertical element. So, in your landscape you might have conifers, grasses, non-living elements, sculpture, what have you. Vertical elements are what help lead the eye through a composition, and they lend scale. So, in this case, I'm taking a tangent from the grass itself, but the PVC pipe is a great material. Again, the watering was challenging. Carex dipsacea, or orange sedge, New Zealand sedge. 

The color speaks for itself. And this is a smaller grass in the 12- to 15-inch range. But, again, dynamite. Here it is in a composition. So, offering illumination. Papyrus. Now, papyrus aren't true grasses. They're more closely related to sedges. And sedges are related to grasses, but we won't get into all the botany behind it. But papyrus is a wonderful plant in our landscape. 

Whether it's in a garden bed, it needs to be kept wet, and it makes sense. Keep them nice and damp. All the papyrus I'll show you will also do well in a shallow water garden. They can be in a small section of your pond, and they just love that moisture. But very beautiful in terms of their texture. Here's papyrus King Tut. This is one that will get six to eight feet tall, and in a container is a great centerpiece. Be wary, you need to have a substantial container because this is a top heavy composition with wind. So that goes into another topic of anchoring containers, but be wary because these things will grow. Another closeup of King Tut in bloom. 

I shouldn't say in bloom; it's starting to form its inflorescences. Warning with papyrus, from personal experience, when I touch papyrus, I get a horrible contact dermatitis. I get a horrible rash. It has very fine particles. Remember the old bleachers at the ball field, the fiberglass bleachers and the back of your legs would itch? It's like that. So, be wary because it's like poison ivy to me. I get a horrible rash. So I inflect that upon the ground staff. I let them deal with it. [LAUGHTER] But it's a great plant. 

Here it is here at Olbrich in Madison near the Thai pavilion in a container just by itself. But King Tut is going to get five, six, seven, we've gotten it up to nine feet tall. And in one of our containers as a centerpiece. If you get any of these strands and blooms that start to brown out, you just cut that entire stalk down. Look at the interior of a papyrus, it's always generating growth. It's always bringing up new growth. They're not hardy at all. So, as a water plant, you have to do something with it in winter if you want to perpetuate it. We compost them. We just throw them in our compost pile. 

But look at, we have people say, what's the fireworks grass out in the garden? What looks like a spray of fireworks? [COUGHING] Excuse me. And this is the grass they're most likely talking about. Here's pseudo screen of that same grass. That's see-through screen. It's not a barrier, but it does block a space. And when you get the light perfectly through a large papyrus like that, it sells itself. At Marquette over in Milwaukee. Here it's used in a long border as a repeated upright element. That's a very narrow border. They use this as a backdrop for those annuals in the foreground. 

Here it is after some hard frost, and it's still holding its texture. It's dead at this point, but it's still offering some interest. Well, there's Baby Tut now. It doesn't quite have the fine texture of King Tut, but if you don't want a five- to seven-foot King Tut, get the 24- to 30-inch Baby Tut. Really nice in a smaller container as a bedding plant. Here's the comparison. I'm not sure I have a laser on this, but that's King Tut in the background, Baby Tut in the foreground. Same conditions in terms of moisture regime. Moist and well-drained soil, uber rich. We like to really amend the soil with organic matter for these. 

And you can see the value of Baby Tut in a container. Cyperus prolifera. This is a dwarf papyrus. This gets in the 24-inch range, but very tight inflorescences, very tight heads. There's variegated papyrus too, albostriatus or variegatus. So you're getting some illumination, some white, some almost entirely white leaflets. And to me, that's dynamite in container as well.  Only gets about 30 inches tall. Hordeum, a tabby, this is essentially cat grass. And tabby is a variegated cat grass. 

And if you purchase cat grass at the stores, the little containers for you cats, and I have a lot of cats, more than I would actually be comfortable telling you... [LAUGHTER] But we grow our own cat grass. It's easy to seed. The variegated is nice an ornamental, but cats love the greens. We have no houseplants left. Eragrostis, this is lovegrass. This is the number one grain crop in Ethiopia. It's a high protein grain called teff. For us, we grow it as a 30-inch tall, beautifully blooming pink grass. So it arcs over and sprays. 

So Eragrostis teff you'll see in your catalogs for its protein value. It's a very high protein grain. You'd have to thresh your own grain which is a lot of work. But you can buy teff seed at all the Whole Foods stores, etc. Again, it's an ornamental edible. It has value in your diet, but, also, look at it here on a wall. Here's a closeup of the blossoms. Starts to bloom in midsummer and lasts through September, typically. Here in a container with elephant ears and some other goodies, but see it arcing over. It doesn't have a real rigid form, so put it in a spot where it can just kind of billow over. 

Full sun for sure. Bunny tail grass or Lagurus. Buy these as plants. You can find the seed, but buy it as an established plant. And we always include this in our children's garden. For children of all ages. Everyone has to touch the flower heads on these. 12 to 18 inches. Full sun on this. So it's not going to get real large, but it blooms for a long period of time. 

Fiber optic grass or Isolepis. You can see why it's called that. Very fine textured. Isolepis will take part shade, and it can take a lot of water. So, keep in mind if you have a condition where those conditions are suitable, it's also great in a container. And it looks like that through the entire summer. Another closeup. Kind of neat. Arundo. You saw this in a slide earlier. 

Arundo donax, or giant reed. If I were showing this slide in California, I'd get booed off the stage because it's extremely invasive in warmer climates. So, Arundo donax is typically just green. And it's listed, I believe, as invasive in California. It's being grown as a biofuel in Florida. It's a renewable biofuel. So it has a lot of vigor. But in our climate, it's a grass that when planted at six inches tall in May/early June, will get seven to eight feet. It looks like a variegated corn, essentially. Very beautiful. 

It's very hard to find. If you're internet savvy, you could Google it and find it. I hope local nurseries carry it. We purchase 100 or 150 every year. We put them in the center of containers. We put them in sunny borders, and everyone asks about them because the impact is amazing, and these slides will speak for themselves. Here's a green leaf version. This is at the Toledo Botanic Garden. You see it also looks like corn, but, to me, it's just a tall grass. For us, again, we go for the variegated version. 

Here it is compared to the green. I have to tell you, though, what I said earlier about some grasses, the dead sedges making it through winter, we've seen this come through some of winters too, and it's another zone seven grass. So we've experimented with heavy mulching to get it to come back, but more often than not we're rebuying it each year. Look at the morning light catching this in a container. Again note that it's all a foliage container. Great centerpiece. I would not be without this grass. Here in a border, and you can see it's a focal point. It's a centerpiece of this border which includes a lot of other variegated plants, but a very illuminated border. It needs full sun for its best coloration. 

And at Rotary Gardens. No two leaves are the same. They have different percentages of cream and white and green. We used it in a repeated element in a border. The year we had yellow and blue as a theme. Notice elephant ears is a bold plant, and then these Arundo colors along the background. This was another Rotary Gardens display years ago. Panicums. Now, we may know perennial Panicums, the switchgrasses. There are annual Panicums. 

This is a beautiful one called Frosted Explosion. This was developed for the cut flower industry because it was a nice filler in cut flowers for its wispiness. Only 30 inches tall, but it gets this beautiful wispy flower head by midsummer that extends all the way until frost where then it turns brown but keeps that wispy form. Here's another closeup. It also looks like a little explosion of fireworks. Here mixed with some zinnias. And it's very lacy in it's texture when it's in bloom, but we group it in masses, and it's, again, very effective. Here it is later in the season. And it actually gets a little pinkish. It blooms cream. 

It blooms, actually, green and then goes to cream and then pink. But for a mid-height, thigh-high grass for wispiness, and if you're into cut flowers, this would be just great in an arrangement. We've already had frost. So these have been frosted. This is in early October, but look at the haze here. And that's probably 20 or 30 of them together. Setaria, palm leaf. Gosh, I'm not going to remember the common name. It's on your slide list. But look at these leaves. 

Not only are they variegated, but they're accordioned. They're ruffled. I think I have a closeup here. Really neat. Now, this grass can get to four feet tall, but my observations, we've grown it for three years, it likes to go sideways. So we put it in containers where it's just kind of done its own thing. We've had to cut it back a little bit and do a little editing on it, but this is just so neat. It never flattens out. It always have this ruffling or ridging, which is really cool. Here it is in a window box or a planter box with petunias and some other goodies. 

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> That was a Setaria variegata. Remember our first side was Pennisetum villosum, called feathertop grass. Again, we're on annual Pennisetums. We buy these buy the hundreds. We buy them in flats, little two-inch pots. And we know they're going to do absolutely nothing until July. And this is what they start to do from July until frost. So we group them. We love these arching foxtail-like flower heads. When you catch some light, they're beautiful. 

This is at Longwood Gardens, also out in Pennsylvania. But that's about three plants creating that late in the summer. It's nice in mixed borders. Olbrich in Madison uses it repeatedly through many borders, and it's dynamite. Here it is again. So, it's a beautiful softening grass, but it is mid-height. It's waist-high. Other Pennisetums, the millets, ornamental millets. Now, Purple Majesty, this is what you're seeing here. It looks like a goofy cattail. 

This has been out for almost 15 years now. And it's pearl millet, and pearl millet is a high protein grain that's grown worldwide, native to Africa. It's grown out in the plain states, again as a grain. Well, they found this purple leafed one years ago. And Purple Majesty is just dynamite for a dark leaf. It's corn-like in appearance, but it gets these beautiful flower heads. Late in the season, the yellow finches will clear all of the seed off of every one of these. So if you're into attracting birds, they'll nibble those seeds. Warning: don't every buy it in bloom. On occasion nurseries will force it into bloom so you see the plant, you see it in bloom. 

And you see what you're getting, but what you're getting is a plant that's going to seed and finishing up its life cycle. So it is an annual grass. So when we plant it, it's two inches tall and it's still green. It hasn't even purpled up, as we call it. So, try to find it as a young plant or purchase seed, and you'll be rewarded. And what we have is a look like this from midsummer all the way until frost. And then the birds start picking it over. But those blooms are very architectural. And Purple Majesty was the only kid on the block for many years. Here's the seed set. 

And, again, the finches will just work these over. At Boerner Botanic Garden near Milwaukee, look at the repeated use of this grass through their herb garden. It's considered an ornamental edible, but you're not going to thresh it for the pearl millet, which is very affordable. At Rotary Gardens, we used it in our formal garden many years ago. We plant it every year, though. I have to tell you that. Purple Baron is a little more squat. It's only in the three- to four-foot range. Very heavy, dark leaves, and also that same look. It's actually reported to be the darkest. 

These really need full sun for the best coloration. Full blazing sun is the way to go with any Panicum, really. Some of the perennial ones will take shade, some shade. Here, again, this is Purple Baron in one of our borders. They came out with Jester about eight years ago. It has a little chartreuse to the leaves. It's a little lighter in color but also that same foliage look. And this is that early foliage. It gets a little darker than that, but it's not, certainly, as dark as Purple Majesty. And there's a patch of Jester, and I think that's pretty dynamite. 

A new one came out, this was five years ago, Jade Princess. Chartreuse leaved. Understand I've talked to you about Purple Majesty at five feet tall, Jester at three to four, this is two feet tall. This stays very short. Jade Princess is dynamite for the coloration. It's nice in a container. That chartreuse really speaks. If it were in part sun, it would be greenish. So get it in full sun for the bright chartreuse coloration. Here it is just starting to flower. 

And you've seen this architecture before with the previous Pennisetums, but look at the repeated use. This is at Cantigny Gardens in Wheaton, Illinois. And they used it all through their borders, and I've think I've got, check that out. It's all through that area. Really dynamite. And you can see its height is under thigh-high, or, excuse me, under waist-high. Another shot. That was a late summer shot. Really neat. Purple fountain grass, everyone grows it. 

I don't think it's ubiquitous or overused ever, particularly when it starts to bloom like this. We buy it as plugs. We put in these little plugs in spring and we wait on it, and it does this typically by mid-July. Last year, of course, everything was five to seven weeks early. So, these included with our warm year. But those inflorescences, again, offer texture, whether it's in a container or a garden bed. So purple fountain grasses I don't think have seen their day. I think they're a wonderful plant, and used in a repetitive border like this, they offer texture. This was a color theme years ago. We did maroon and red. 

And note the use of culvert planters on the left and right with grasses. And these grasses I'll describe in just a second, but this was a fun border. Very rich in coloration. You saw fireworks earlier. It's a variegated purple fountain grass, but look at, that's a true color slide. Look at the beautiful variegation in that plant. Here in a container. Here starting to bloom. This is typically July, and it will extend until frost. And just look how vivid that is. 

So whether you're using a solitary fireworks or multiple ones, you can't be without it. And it's a great plant to combine with other colors obviously. Here it is at Rotary Gardens later in the season. And that's how grasses offer movement when you get a little bit of breeze. Sky Rocket is the more white variegated version. So you get a clean white variegation, same scale, same blooms, etc. nother Pennisetum called Red Bunny Tails. Very bottle brush-like blossoms. So this is one we've use periodically. Although, we didn't last year. Elephant grass, or Napier grass, these are native to Africa. 

They're standard, they're green. They're a large green grass. These came out a couple years ago, and we planted prince, this variety. Look how bold that is. And I need to tell you, that's about six feet tall as you see it, but we've grown prince almost to 10 feet tall. So imagine some massive maroon grass in your yard that looks like this. And it's totally annual. It will not bloom for you. Not that it doesn't bloom, it just doesn't have enough season and enough months to do it. But prince is a large one. 

Here's fireworks in the foreground, prince in the background. Remember what I said earlier about allowing space because prince will billow out and take up, it will be eight feet wide at the top. So be wary of that. Here's prince in another border. The more sun, the darker it is. And if you can find it in a four-inch pot or a one-gallon pot, it's beautiful. Here in one of our beds, that's three grasses clumped together. Another border with prince punctuating it. Way in the distance there's another prince as well. I can't get away from these. 

And there's that same border you saw. Culvert pipe planter. There's garbage can inserts in there for the container themselves, but that's also prince. So we had these massive grasses coming out of the culvert pipe. They're three feet in the ground, by the way. There's not ground staff in here. I haven't told them where we're going to move them for next year. [LAUGHTER] They're bitter about it. It's a lot of work. [LAUGHTER] People ask, is that culvert pipe? Sure, but we paint it different colors each year. 

Princess is a shorter version. Prince on the upper right, princess on the lower left. She's only in the five- to six-foot range. So if you can't deal with a large prince, get princess. This is also princess. So, again, a little more contained in terms of height. Vertigo, we're getting a little bit shorter. So, vertigo is in that four-foot range. Vertigo, in my mind, is the darkest. It's extremely dark. 

Almost black in full sun. So, again, you can have that same look but more diminutive sizes. Still looking at vertigo here. So I think these are pretty neat. Value in containers, here with trailing begonias. Go a little smaller with Princess Caroline. She's in the two- to three-foot range. And there's Princess Molly, 24 inches. So we have elephant grasses now from two feet to, essentially, eight to 10 feet. So there's those five varieties. 

Keep them in mind. Do look for them and snatch them up before everyone else does in spring, and get them in full sun. Melinus, this grass, pink crystals or ruby crystals. Nice bluish-green foliage. Blooms like these pink ones you're seeing. Typically won't come until July, but they are very long lasting. And this is a grass that's in the 24- to 30-inch range. Again, every grass I'm mentioning is somewhere on your slide list, and I can help you with research later if you need it. Melica ciliata grass. This is another annual, blooming late in the season. 

And look how beautiful these inflorescences are. And that's why you would plant this grass. I'm throwing a lot at you, but there's some fun ones. Oplismenus, this is variegated basket grass. This can take quite a bit of shade. In fact, it's relegated to shady containers. We use them in our shady containers, and they do well in very little light and look quite unique for a grass. And there it is in a hanging basket. I think that's kind of neat. That's in our gazebo which gets, literally, maybe a smidge of dapple light during the day. 

Cymbopogon, we're getting to herbs a little bit, but lemongrass. Lemongrass is one of the top five most used herbs in the world. If you've ever smelled lemongrass, that's a great plant we engage kids with because it's such a strong lemon scent. Lots of great uses, and it's certainly not a hardy grass but one we include in our herb gardens. You'd have to decide if you thought it was ornamental. There are variegated corns now. Zea mays japonica. There's a new one called Field of Dreams that came out last year. So the variegated corn is beautiful for not only the foliage, but you'll see the ears when they come out have a variegation. Not the ears themselves but the coverings. 

Our problem with growing any sort of corn is woodchucks and raccoons. They just bend them down, and that's the end of them. And that's just the way it goes. Love Tiger Cub. This is a dwarf variegated corn. Only four feet tall. Again, corn is an annual grass. Look at the patterning on that. That's in my front yard. I take a couple kernels and plant it. 

Juncus, rushes. Now, there's many Juncus that are perennial or marginally hardy for us. I'm just showing these very briefly because they have merit in our containers and in our garden borders, particularly in the wetter locations where rushes will thrive. That was Javelin. This is Blue Arrow which is hardy to zone five. So many of us could carry this over as a perennial. Very upright in appearance. Most are in the blue range in terms of color. And here's a huge patch of Blue Arrows. Blue Mohawk, another variety. 

Again, marginally hardy. Imagine that as a centerpiece of a container. Hedgehog. This is a dwarf rush. Stays very short in the 12-inch range. Also nice and blue. Rice. Now, we're not going to grow rice to actually get the rice, but there are ornamental rices. Now, Blue Bonnet has a bluish cast to the leaves. We're not growing these out in rice fields. 

Rice you can grow in standard garden soil, but they do like the moisture. But there's some great dark leaf rice. The dark leaf rice, or even white-leaved rice, which I don't have a picture of, are used as row markers where they're grown as crops. They use the different colored rice to actually mark rows because rice has a standard green leaf to it. Red Dragon is dynamite for purple. And now there's Black Madras. This is what it looks like earlier in the season. And this is what it darkens up to. Notice it's in standing water. So, again, ornamental rice, it's a fun conversation piece. 

Again, you're not growing it for the rice itself. And if you can find sugarcane, it's a great annual grass that will get enormous in a season. You'd have to overwinter it in a different setting. Here's a variegated, what are we talking about? Help me out. Sugarcane, excuse me. [LAUGHTER] Violaceum. Here's a dark leaf one. There's also one called Pele's Smoke, which is a very dark sugarcane. So it'd be neat to go out in your yard and cut one of these, and, literally, you could get that sugary substance from the base. And sugarcane is one of the most commonly grown grasses in the world for its economic value. 

So, grasses in the landscape. Here we have papyrus. This is purple fountain grass. This is downtown Madison. I really love this planter for the use of grasses, for the scale. Everything we talked about, texture, movement, color. That be has no flowers in it, traditional flowers or high maintenance annuals. These are grasses that are doing well in this location. There are grass-like plants out there, like Phormiums. These are from Australia. 

Phormiums, Dusky Chief, very grass-like in appearance but not true grasses. Sundowner, which is variegated. Hakonechloa, the comment here is perennial grasses can be used in annual situations meaning you can use these in a container, then poke them out and put them in your landscape later in the season. So, Golden Hakone grass certainly can be used as a little smidge of color. Olbrich, I've mentioned them many times, they do a wonderful job using this grass as a little sprig of color in their arrangements. Something like this perennial grass. This is blue dune grass or blue lime grass. It's probably going to be on our invasive list or the don't every plant in your yard list because of it's spreading nature. But in a container where it's containerized like this is beautiful for powder blue. There's not a grass that has this shade of blue. 

Well, we put it in our culvert pipe planters which were painted yellow this year because we simply wanted to contain it. I planted it in my front yard 10 years ago, and I'm still digging up chunks. So be wary of it as a garden perennial. So we use it as a seasonal, then we compost it. Here in another container. Here's Dewey Blue, which is a blue leaf Panicum or switchgrass, another beautiful perennial. And here's Little Zebra. This is a dwarf porcupine grass used as a centerpiece. So these perennial grasses used in a container, you certainly wouldn't leave the container out over the winter with these grasses. Now, with a mild winter or if they were placed in the house or the garage, maybe they'd come back. 

That's up to you to decide if you want to try it. When we use perennial grasses in containers at the gardens, what we do is we actually poke them out in early October, put them in a container, and then bury the container, essentially plant the container. So the roots of that grass, which has been transplanted, are insulated by ground conditions. So the next spring, we pull up the container and we use that grass again. So you don't have to waste these grasses. [COUGHING] Excuse me. Ribbon grass, Phalaris. Again, don't plant it in you landscape. It goes crazy. It can take a lot of shade but in a container has value for its variegation. 

I did want to mention as we near the end here, I've done a garden blog for five years now. I do it five times a week, and what I feature are images of the gardens. I talk about what's happening. You'll have it on your slide list towards some of your last slide images there, but it's a great way to see what's happening at the gardens. I talk about what we're going to be doing this year, and there's certainly ways you can dialog with me about what's happening. And if, again, you haven't been to the gardens or have not been recently, we certainly hope you'll come and visit. We also have a wonderful website, and that's also listed on your slide list. This is our reception garden. In brief, in the distance, that archway, that's the old archway to the Parker Pen world headquarters which was in Janesville. So we have a lot of Janesville history incorporated throughout the gardens, but the use of grasses here, that's blue lime grass in these containers along the sides. 

In the center, that's actually a perennial grass. That's Cosmopolitan Miscanthus. But we use perennial and annual grasses throughout almost every garden area. So I would encourage you to explore more this spring for annual grasses. Look through your catalogs. I've shown you a wide range of what's available, but understand, it's probably 30% to 40% of what's actually out there for you because there's many varieties of the various grasses I've shown you. And hopefully you've been engaged to see some of those. So with that, I really hope you do come and visit Rotary Gardens. [APPLAUSE]