Why are grasses so hard to get right?

I’m in a quandary. To be honest I think what it really boils down to is whether I want to my garden to be more designed or whether I want to focus on plants?  A year ago I would have said plants, but reading blogs and magazines has caused me to start being more interested in the overall appearance so now I am in a complete dilemma.  I will never be a slave to design but I am thinking more about the overall impact of putting this plant here or there, which is hopefully a good thing.  However, I am struggling with making the plants I like work together.

Take for example grasses.  I love grasses and admire the big swathes of prairie planting that I see in gardening magazines, although so far I haven’t had the chance to see them in real life. However, I am struggling to get them to work well in my garden. I think that successfully using grasses in gardens is a lot more problematic that people realise.  To me they often look as though they have been plonked in the border as a nod to the latest trend.  But conversely there are times when they can look stunning and I want to try and work out what exactly it is about grasses I like and how I should use them for best effect in my own garden.

Interestingly, I have come across a couple of blog posts this last week which have added to my pondering. The first  was a blog post by Mike over at Hazel Trees.  He refers to Alan Titchmarsh’s comment about prairie planting looking like perpetual autumn and questions whether ornamental grasses should be allowed to dominate.  This resonated with me in a way since I have been contemplating planting more grasses en masse in the garden but whenever I look at photos of such planting there seems, to me, to be something missing.  I know that grasses are renowned for the movement they bring to the garden but I find block after block of grasses, albeit of different heights and hues, boring.  I think I need the contrast of texture such as broad leaved perennials and, yes, flowers.  This feeling was confirmed when I recently visited Arley Arboretum which has a fairly new grass garden which really disappointed me.  The area wasn’t that large and the borders were of an organic shape but it was more a collection of different grasses  than a good design with the plants working together and it made me realise that it can be difficult to get grasses to look fantastic.

As Mike says not many of us have large areas that we can give over to prairie planting.  My garden is I suppose on the small to medium size and I could give it over to grasses but then I would have to restrict my plant palette  and that is just a non-starter but more importantly I think prairie planting not only works best on a larger scale than the suburban garden but it also works best in the right context.  So I can see that the prairie planting at Pensthorpe in Norfolk would be excellent given it is surrounded by arable farmland and there are large skies and great light levels.  After all for me grasses come into their own when the light shines through them – so careful siting is also a consideration.

So how can I make grasses shine in my humble  suburban garden? As a start I have planted a row of Calamigrostis  along the top of the slope in front of the path.  The slope causes me real problems as my garden is prone to a wind blowing through it, which is weird given the amount of trees and shrubs growing along the boundaries! My thinking is that as plants on the slope tend to get blown over and because it is difficult to work on the slope the best approach is for me to use plants that can cope with being blown around a bit therefore grasses are near the top of the  list.  As well as the grasses along the top of the slope I  have planted some shorter grasses in swathes along the lower part of the slope. I am in filling with perennials so far mainly asters and other late summer perennials.  I’m not at all convinced this will look good in the overall scheme.  I wonder how it will fit with the rest of the garden, I wonder if I’m not being daring enough, too conservative?

I had been pondering using more grasses along the top of the wall border as again there is a wind problem here (if you know what I mean!) but I think I might be going for what I saw as an easy option.  Whilst I believe planting with grasses is difficult to pull off well I think grasses provide an excellent ‘glue’ to hold a border together.  I have often looked at borders, including my own, and felt that the planting is disjointed.  I try to contrast textures, leaf size, heights etc but I just don’t have enough experience and plant knowledge to pull it off well.  I did wonder if grasses could be my secret weapon in this quest but I am not so confident now. However, I have been encouraged by Christina’s blog ‘Creating my own garden of the Hesperides’.  Like me Christina has a slope to contend with, though on a much bigger scale, and like me she is turning to grasses to help her out.  Her recent post on Stipas was quite inspiring as she posted a number of photos of Stipas, which self seed all over her garden, growing alongside other perennials and some of the combinations surprised me in how well they worked.


I’m was also surprised when looking at Christina’s photos of how I preferred the young spring growth of the Stipa more than the autumnal browny growth and again this makes me wonder if grasses are the way to go for me.  Interestingly, whilst looking for photos for this post I couldn’t find any which showed grasses looking good mixed with perennials so I obviously haven’t seen any in the gardens I have visited.  I wonder if this is because people are slightly intimidated by grasses, as they are bright flowering perennials, so they tend to stick them in a border together or whether they are going for the whole grass-scape approach which some designers have made popular.


So my conclusion? I have no conclusion!! I think I will continue to look and see how others use grasses and think long and hard about what I like and don’t in planting style and also wait to see if the slope works – so procrastination is the way forward for now!