Grass-tastic

Molinia Dauerstrahl (purple moor grass) and verbena bonariensis

Ornamental grasses are one of the easiest groups of plants to design with in a coastal location. By our gardening correspondent, Gill Maccabe

East or west, which is best? I’m not talking about the beaches of our home Island, but the gardens and the difference a few miles can make.

As a relative newcomer to the west, from small sheltered gardens in the east where everything grew quickly and slugs were the biggest problem, I’ve had to adapt to the challenges thrown by our one acre of heavy clay soil in the exposed northwest of the Island, battered by harsh westerlies for much of the winter and drying winds in the summer.

It’s a constant learning curve; at the same time as eastern dwellers are apologising to neighbours for their invasive clematis in late April, we are still waiting for our buds to burst into flower and get ridiculously excited when more than half of a fruit tree develops blossom - before it is invariably blown away prematurely. Everything takes a little bit longer and requires more care and persuasion - apart, that is, for ornamental grasses, one of the easiest groups of plants to design with on (and above) the coast. Almost every one of the common UK varieties tolerate salt-laden spray or harsh ocean winds – and they are enjoying huge popularity as more gardeners are persuaded to create more naturalistic gardens.

When close friends moved to the coastal park area of St Ouen a few years ago, they had to totally rethink their gardening strategy to cope with the unfamiliar soil and conditions.

“Many gardens that are quite close

to the coast, while having to endure the occasional salt-laden gale, can in fact grow a range of plants that seem overall to tolerate these conditions

They laid out their half acre plot in undulating curves of miscanthus sinensis gnome, which produces little compact mounds of narrow foliage topped by freely produced pink flowers; the compact imperata cylindrical rubra, sometimes known as Japanese blood grass, which bears brilliant red spikes that fade to bright green at the base and become translucent with age; and calamagrostis karl foerstrer, which some think is like a miniature pampas grass.

All agree it is a stunning and tranquil space and relatively low maintenance. Grasses allow you to create a sense of drama. You can plant them in waves and clumps, repeating the same plant say five or seven times and interspersing with taller, see-through plants such as verbena bonariensis (with its tall, narrow, sparsely-leaved stems and beautiful, long-lasting, purple, star-shaped flowers) or the tall, tender sanguisorba pink elephant (reliable, herbaceous perennial with dark green leaves and nodding spikes of red, bottlebrush-like flower).

As the wind moves up and over the grouped masses, it creates an unbeatable vision of motion and colour, graceful and ethereal, just like the chorus of ballerinas in Swan Lake’s Dance of the Cygnets.

One of the UK's leading ornamental grass specialists - sometimes known colloquially as Mr Grass - is RHS Judge and ten times Chelsea gold winner Neil Lucas. He said that most grasses are pretty tolerant of windy situations as they come from fairly similar conditions in the natural landscape. “ Using deciduous grasses can be a good technique as the worst of the gales tend to be

during the winter months when the grasses are dormant with only the dried stems showing above ground

‘Most of the main groups, such as pennisetum, panicum, miscanthus, calamagrostis and sesleria are all pretty good in this respect.

‘Many gardens that are quite close to the coast, while having to endure the occasional salt-laden gale, can in fact grow a range of plants that seem overall to tolerate these conditions. ‘Panicum sea mist, for example, is a selection of amarum which is a US beach grass species and pennistetum macroourum might also be worth a mention (for Jersey gardens).’

He added: ‘Using deciduous grasses can be a good technique as the worst of the gales tend to be during the winter months when the grasses are dormant with only the dried stems showing above ground.’

Ornamental grasses are easy to care for. Deciduous ones should be cut right back before new growth begins in spring, whilst evergreens just need tidying to remove last year’s flower stems and any dead foliage. The best way to clean your evergreens is to put on a pair of rubber gloves and comb your fingers through the grass and the dead pieces will stick to the gloves.

Neil offers free planting advice from his RHS Knoll nursery in Dorset. Just email mrgrass@knollgardens.co.uk with images of your project and any relevant information and they will reply as soon as they can.

You can also get more grass-tastic inspiration from the website of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, who has created naturalistic, mainly grass, gardens for clients all around the world.

Take a look at www.oudolf.com