Contemplative Grasses

Call me obsessed, but every evening I return home, parking closest to the planting bed(s) that require inspection the following morning. The morning “awakening” before getting back into the corporate mindset that draws ever more on my dwindling mental fortitude This works out well during the “warm” months when the daylight hours are longer and the swift fingers of justice nab those pesky Digitaria (that seem to keep popping up despite my best efforts and best pre-emergents) before ever walking in the front door.

While leaving for work this morning and couldn’t help but notice the ornamental grasses that dot the landscape. The sedges have over-wintered beautifully to this point, while the Panicum have seen better days. They resemble a poorly constructed Flock of Seagull’s haircut. No further comment should be necessary… Oddly enough, the Miscanthus has never thrived in the location it was planted. This is an intense plant that has been seen thriving in nothing more than a pile of rocks. Growing with reckless abandon along the interstate, but not in my garden. I like to believe that my soil is inhospitable to the non-native, potentially invasive species. I am certain this is not the case. What concerns me is there are seemingly more nutrients in a pile of rocks than in my garden. Impossible. Salvia and Solidago occupy the same bed. Watson, fetch my deerstalker and hand lens. I will need to investigate this further.

Thinking about my minimal grass collection on the tedious commute into the office actually made me melancholy. Remembering back to the grass collections at Heronswood Gardens, Fordhook Farm, Morris Arboretum, Chanticleer, and Tyler Arboretum, my first thoughts shifted to how stately the grasses appeared and how they provided an essential element to the design of the landscape. Their form and texture lent an unruly element to an otherwise formal planting. Upon my arrival at the office, I have concluded without a doubt, I require an unruly presence in my gardens, and not just myself. Both tall and short, ridged and undulating, my garden and I have neglected the great grasses, lost ourselves focusing on the Digitaria.