Resilient Plants at Work: Winter Interest and Ornamental Grasses
The love of plant material lured me into the green industry as a young man. Later as a Landscape Architect and founder of a Landscape Maintenance company, my 30 years of experience has taught me to consider all aspects of planting design. First and foremost is resilience. In our ever-changing environment we can experience extreme heat, drought and extreme moisture in a single month. We can have winter injury, drought stress, salt damage and a myriad of disease and insect problems.
With that said, sensitive areas that can experience these extreme conditions on a regular basis need careful consideration. Our company prides itself on our property care services. When we recommend a planting design to our clients, we want to ensure that it can endure extreme weather while delivering the aesthetic design we are asking the plants to provide.
Over the next several months, I will review several plants that have been extremely resilient to the extreme conditions I have outlined above and provide, among other things, interest in the Winter.
The pictures you have been enjoying are of ornamental grasses. In most cases we are used to seeing them planted at the shore region or as accents in residential landscapes, but in the projects featured in these pictures we are using them for screening and accent planting at extremely difficult areas that will experience salt, snow, extreme heat and drought conditions in the summer months. Ornamental grasses are resilient to all of the extreme weather conditions and provide interest in almost every season. They are excellent for screening and at maturity can be 8-10 feet in height and reach their maturity in 3 seasons.
Ornamental grasses thrive by themselves or in combination with evergreens. They work well along roadways where they can tolerate snow being piled on them or being sprayed with salt from ice clearing operations. Relatively speaking they are less expensive than woody plants and in the event one dies, replacements can be made. In one season's time, the growth of the replacements can not be discerned from the original planting.
As they mature year after year it may be necessary to split them so they don’t lose their natural shape. Although many maintenance programs have the grasses cut in the Fall, I would argue that the golden brown foliage of winter is quite striking and far outweighs the mess some fractured plumes and foliage may create to the landscape. Also, the foliage is meant to protect the root structure in winter from extreme freezing temperatures. Herbaceous plants don’t have the same deep root systems as their woody cousins and hence the foliage helps insulate the root system for extended periods of below freezing temps.
When you consider resilience, cost and aesthetics, ornamental grasses have a place in the landscape and can provide solutions to screening in tough areas where snow, salt and water are all a problem. A few of my favorite varieties include Feather Reed Grass, Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, Miscanthus Sinensis ‘Adagio” and ‘Morning Light’. For planting design in tough areas or for a more comprehensive list of resilient plants reach out to us at www.liveoaklandscape.com/contact.