Peter Dowdall: The joy of using ornamental grasses in the garden
Ornamental grasses come into their own at this time of year, pushing up soft plumes and seed heads that catch every breath of wind and turn ordinary borders into living, moving, entities.
It's the movement that grasses bring which makes them so captivating. It's in the way that they sway and ripple with even the slightest breeze, unlike many of our garden plants that stand rather stiff, heavy and upright.
They break up static planting, drawing the eye across the garden and adding a layer of texture that changes hour by hour with the light and wind. There's something calming, almost meditative, about watching grasses dance, a quality that seems to deepen as the evenings start to stretch into night.
Miscanthus sinensis, with its tall, elegant stems and feathery flower heads, is a superb choice for the back of a border. Varieties like Morning Light or Ferner Osten, add height and a gentleness that never feels heavy.
For a lighter touch, Stipa tenuissima, the Mexican feather grass, is hard to beat. Its fine, hair-like blades spill and flutter so delicately that they seem almost to shimmer.
Pennisetum alopecuroides, or fountain grass, with its bottlebrush plumes and neat mounding shape is just lovely in drifts or tucked in amongst late summer perennials.
I defy anyone to pass a Stipa or Pennisetum and not want to touch it or simply watch it moving.
That's what a plant or a garden should do, it should captivate all the senses and encourage the visitor to connect with and to become part of the space. That's why I can't abide those signs that you sometimes see 'Stay off the grass'. I would much rather see signs promoting the message to 'Take off your shoes, get on the grass, roll in it, play on it, connect with it!'
Grasses teach us to look differently at a garden. Rather than focusing only on bursts of colour or big floral displays, they invite us to appreciate the interplay of textures, writes Peter Dowdall. File picture
Ornamental grasses mix brilliantly with flowering perennials, helping to create that modern meadow look which feels so relaxed and natural. Try weaving them through patches of echinacea, rudbeckia or verbena for a loose, informal feel that still offers plenty of late colour. The contrast between sturdy daisy-like flowers and airy grasses is one of the easiest ways to give your borders that effortless, naturalistic style.
Texture isn't just about fine versus coarse, either. Grasses can be wiry or silky, upright or cascading, stiff or supple. Miscanthus, for instance, brings an almost architectural quality with its strong upright stems, topped by feathery plumes, which contrast wonderfully with more rounded plants like sedums or globe thistles.
Molinia or moor grass is another exquisitely elegant addition to the party. Their slender, upright flower stems rise well above the foliage in summer, topped with delicate flower panicles that seem to float in the air.
As autumn comes, many varieties take on stunning shades of gold and amber, adding another season of interest. Molinia is especially effective when planted where the evening sun can backlight those fine seed heads.
Meanwhile, the much softer texture of a grass like Deschampsia cespitosa, the tufted hair grass, creates a dreamy, meadow-like effect, through which sturdier flowers can poke.
When it comes to cutting back, many gardeners reach for the secateurs in autumn to tidy up as soon as plants start to brown. If you're one of them, let me urge you this year, to be a bit different.
If you can bear to leave your grasses standing through winter, you'll be rewarded with months of subtle beauty. Frost and low sun transform seed heads into sparkling sculptures, while smaller birds will feed on the seedheads and perhaps even shelter in the foliage.
It's only in early spring, around February or March, that I take the grasses down, cutting them back hard to make way for fresh green growth.
Grasses teach us to look differently at a garden. Rather than focusing only on bursts of colour or big floral displays, they invite us to appreciate the interplay of textures, the way different leaf forms bounce off and work with one another and how the garden moves and shifts with the slightest breeze.
There's something wonderfully unforced about gardening with grasses. They blur the edges, invite wildlife, and let you design with movement and texture to enhance the shapes and colours.
That texture that I referred to at the start of this piece is the secret ingredient that turns a collection of plants into a truly special planting scheme and grasses are the masters of it.
Right now, as they begin to flower and show off their late summer finery, is the perfect moment to appreciate all they bring and perhaps plan to add a few more for next year's gentle garden performance.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
Which seeds should you be collecting and why?
If you've seen your garden flowers turning brown, it may be time to start collecting the seeds to give you more plants for free next year. Collecting seeds from lavender, foxgloves, honesty, wallflowers, poppies, sweet peas, and Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-mist) is so easy and can save you a lot of money, says garden influencer Anya Lautenbach (@anya_thegarden_fairy), author of a series of books for the budget-conscious gardener, including The Money-Saving Gardener. "Seeds are like treasure," she enthuses. "They have to ripen on the plant so you can't speed up the process. You can't collect seedheads when they are green – you have to wait for that moment to happen." Don't forget perennials, which may also be ripe for seed collection, she continues. "A lot of them will produce seeds in late summer and autumn. For example, I grew some great delphiniums and astrantias from seeds, which will perform year after year." How can you tell if a seed is ready to be harvested? Flowers should have turned brown. "Take a brown flower and just shake it and see if the seeds fall," she suggests. When the seedhead open you can see that the seeds can easily be shaken out, she explains. Is there an easy way to collect the seeds? "Put a paper bag under the seedheads and shake them or cut off the whole stem in the paper bag and hang it upside down in a cool, dark place, especially if the seeds are microscopic. "Gardeners can put their hand under the flower after it has turned brown and gently rub the flower. When they are ready, the seeds will easily be removed," she offers. Separate the seeds from other debris (known as chaff) by sieving them. Some seeds benefit from being sown straight away, such as delphiniums, clematis and anemones, while others should be stored for winter or spring sowing. When is the best time to collect seeds? "With many plants, late summer and early autumn are the best times," she says. "This is when everything is ripening. Some plants need the whole season for their seeds to ripen. Erigeron (Mexican daisy) produces seeds on a daily basis. Yet they are quite expensive to buy." Foxgloves and lavender seeds should be ready to harvest, as should honesty, she adds. "Honesty seed cases look like silver coins. You will see the seeds on this plant inside the papery seed cases." Is the weather a factor? "Yes. The best time to collect seeds is when it's dry, in the middle of the day, not after rain and not in the morning because the seedheads are still damp. Collect them on a warm, dry day." How do you store them? "Store them somewhere dry and cool, but you don't have to create special conditions. I grew a whole garden from seed and stored all of them under my stairs in the house, not in special conditions." Ideally, store them in paper bags or something which allows air circulation, not a plastic tub with a lid, she recommends. How long will they keep? "After two years, they usually start underperforming, so the rate of germination will be lower. I usually start them off straight away or keep them for the next season, so I'd say they last about a year." Will they produce identical plants? Some seeds won't come back true, because a lot of them are cross-pollinated, she observes. But others, such as honesty and Lychnis Coronaria will come true to type, so you will get plants that are identical to the parents. Are plants grown from home-harvested seed superior? "Based on what I have done, the plants that were born in my garden from seed are more resilient, especially the ones that self-seed. From the moment they have germinated, they are exposed to my conditions. "If I buy a plant that has been artificially grown somewhere, especially not in this country, and then I bring it into my garden, it might not perform as well as the one that I grew myself from seed," she says.
Irish Examiner
05-08-2025
- Irish Examiner
Garden Q&A: Why have my hydrangeas turned from blue to pink?
Question Why aren't my hydrangeas blue any more? I bought them in flower when they were a lovely blue colour, but now they are a dirty pink. Answer I love your expression 'dirty pink' and I understand what you are describing. The reason for this is all down to soil chemistry. The vivid blue colour in Hydrangea macrophylla relies on aluminium being available to the plant, which only happens in acidic soils with a pH below about seven. If your soil is more alkaline, the aluminium gets locked up and the flowers shift to pink. It can also happen over time if you add lime or your soil naturally becomes more alkaline. To restore blue tones, try feeding with aluminium sulphate and mulching with ericaceous compost. Using rainwater, which is often more acidic than tap water in many areas, can also be beneficial. In very limey ground, you're often better growing your hydrangea in a pot of ericaceous compost where you can control the pH more easily. Got a gardening question for Peter Dowdall? Email gardenquestions@
Irish Examiner
26-07-2025
- Irish Examiner
Peter Dowdall: The joy of using ornamental grasses in the garden
There's a certain something in a garden that makes it a bit special, that gives the space an extra nuance. It's a secret ingredient, not always easy to put your finger on it, but it's that clever use of texture that comes by using ornamental grasses in the mix. Ornamental grasses come into their own at this time of year, pushing up soft plumes and seed heads that catch every breath of wind and turn ordinary borders into living, moving, entities. It's the movement that grasses bring which makes them so captivating. It's in the way that they sway and ripple with even the slightest breeze, unlike many of our garden plants that stand rather stiff, heavy and upright. They break up static planting, drawing the eye across the garden and adding a layer of texture that changes hour by hour with the light and wind. There's something calming, almost meditative, about watching grasses dance, a quality that seems to deepen as the evenings start to stretch into night. Miscanthus sinensis, with its tall, elegant stems and feathery flower heads, is a superb choice for the back of a border. Varieties like Morning Light or Ferner Osten, add height and a gentleness that never feels heavy. For a lighter touch, Stipa tenuissima, the Mexican feather grass, is hard to beat. Its fine, hair-like blades spill and flutter so delicately that they seem almost to shimmer. Pennisetum alopecuroides, or fountain grass, with its bottlebrush plumes and neat mounding shape is just lovely in drifts or tucked in amongst late summer perennials. I defy anyone to pass a Stipa or Pennisetum and not want to touch it or simply watch it moving. That's what a plant or a garden should do, it should captivate all the senses and encourage the visitor to connect with and to become part of the space. That's why I can't abide those signs that you sometimes see 'Stay off the grass'. I would much rather see signs promoting the message to 'Take off your shoes, get on the grass, roll in it, play on it, connect with it!' Grasses teach us to look differently at a garden. Rather than focusing only on bursts of colour or big floral displays, they invite us to appreciate the interplay of textures, writes Peter Dowdall. File picture Ornamental grasses mix brilliantly with flowering perennials, helping to create that modern meadow look which feels so relaxed and natural. Try weaving them through patches of echinacea, rudbeckia or verbena for a loose, informal feel that still offers plenty of late colour. The contrast between sturdy daisy-like flowers and airy grasses is one of the easiest ways to give your borders that effortless, naturalistic style. Texture isn't just about fine versus coarse, either. Grasses can be wiry or silky, upright or cascading, stiff or supple. Miscanthus, for instance, brings an almost architectural quality with its strong upright stems, topped by feathery plumes, which contrast wonderfully with more rounded plants like sedums or globe thistles. Molinia or moor grass is another exquisitely elegant addition to the party. Their slender, upright flower stems rise well above the foliage in summer, topped with delicate flower panicles that seem to float in the air. As autumn comes, many varieties take on stunning shades of gold and amber, adding another season of interest. Molinia is especially effective when planted where the evening sun can backlight those fine seed heads. Meanwhile, the much softer texture of a grass like Deschampsia cespitosa, the tufted hair grass, creates a dreamy, meadow-like effect, through which sturdier flowers can poke. When it comes to cutting back, many gardeners reach for the secateurs in autumn to tidy up as soon as plants start to brown. If you're one of them, let me urge you this year, to be a bit different. If you can bear to leave your grasses standing through winter, you'll be rewarded with months of subtle beauty. Frost and low sun transform seed heads into sparkling sculptures, while smaller birds will feed on the seedheads and perhaps even shelter in the foliage. It's only in early spring, around February or March, that I take the grasses down, cutting them back hard to make way for fresh green growth. Grasses teach us to look differently at a garden. Rather than focusing only on bursts of colour or big floral displays, they invite us to appreciate the interplay of textures, the way different leaf forms bounce off and work with one another and how the garden moves and shifts with the slightest breeze. There's something wonderfully unforced about gardening with grasses. They blur the edges, invite wildlife, and let you design with movement and texture to enhance the shapes and colours. That texture that I referred to at the start of this piece is the secret ingredient that turns a collection of plants into a truly special planting scheme and grasses are the masters of it. Right now, as they begin to flower and show off their late summer finery, is the perfect moment to appreciate all they bring and perhaps plan to add a few more for next year's gentle garden performance.
