Grasses are the stars of the garden this time of year

It’s a great time of year to do some garden peeping. If your own garden is looking a little haggard, as many plants are after a long summer and a dry spell, pay attention to what’s looking good in other gardens.

There’s a good chance you’ll notice that right now grasses are some of the best looking plants in gardens.

Ornamental grasses can be polarizing. Some gardeners detest them or think that they don’t belong in gardens with a more formal design. But there’s a good chance they’d change their mind if they saw how good they look in late summer.

Grasses spend much of the gardening season offering a much-needed texture contrast and a resting spot for the eye, but come late summer, it’s time for them to be the star of the show. They bloom with showy flowers, like many varieties of reed grass (Calamagrostis), or something more dainty, such as Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa) or some moor grasses (Molinia).

However fancy the flowers, they dance around in wind, adding movement and interest to a fading garden. And best of all, when many perennials are showing the signs of a long season, with insect damage and crispy foliage, grasses still look fresh and unstressed.

Some gardeners are wary of grasses because they have been wronged by them in the past. And there’s a good chance the culprit of that fear was Chinese silver grass (Miscanthus).

Miscanthus was one of the first ornamental grasses to be widely sold. Early adopters embraced it only to find out that it spread aggressively and it practically required a backhoe to dig out.

I know this because I’ve been there. I inherited a garden mass planted with a variety of ornamental grasses including Miscanthus, and despite removing them 21 years ago, I still find them popping up.

But gardeners shouldn’t let the bad actors of Miscanthus sacchariflorus and M. sinensis keep them from embracing some great grasses.

Some gardeners consider Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ to be boring because it’s now quite common, but it’s reliable, beautiful and well behaved. It has a very upright habit so it tends to be appealing to gardeners who prefer a tidy look.

For those who want something a little different, Molinia ‘Transparent,’ whose flowers reach up to 6 feet but are so delicate the plant lives up to its name, or the smaller Molinia ‘Poul Petersen,’ a favorite of famous Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, are both excellent options.

No discussion of grasses would be complete without including big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), two grasses native to eastern North America that offer gorgeous colors including red, blue and purple. Several new cultivars are particularly good additions to the late season garden.

The only problem with falling in love with ornamental grasses in September is that the best time to plant and divide many of them is spring. So when you’re out there peeping, take a few pictures and make a note to add grasses to next spring’s shopping list.