Plant guilt-free native grasses — they’ll grow on you

My client and I stood before a massive old pampas grass in her backyard.

This giant grass from the Pampas, or South American lowlands, blooms with big, white feather dusters above the nearly 10-foot-tall mass.

“I want to get rid of it,” she said.

“That’s not going to be easy,” I replied.

The next time I visited, the grass was nothing but a blackened mass of 4-foot-tall, densely packed root crowns.

“Diesel works,” she said. “My husband wanted to use dynamite.”

Burning pampas grass is not an acceptable solution, but it does remove all the sharp edged leaves that make digging it out painful and bloody. The newly exposed interior revealed decades of tightly packed crowns my client dissected with a chain saw and dragged out with a truck and chain.

Here in California, there’s another grass that’s proving problematic. Fountain grass belongs to the genus Pennisetum, native to tropical Africa. It’s perfectly adapted to warm states where it naturalizes into dry washes and river beds, displacing our native grasses and sedges.

The first Pennisetum setaceum in my garden seeded itself all over my sandy ground and even into gravel areas where it’s so difficult to remove. Though this is a most beautiful grass, it is best viewed with an eye on invasiveness in the garden and in the wild.

Today, I prefer to use just two native grasses that are suited to gardens in nearly every state. They are species of the genus Muhlenbergia, affectionately dubbed “muhlies.” As native grasses, they belong in our gardens in lieu of potentially invasive exotics.

In Eastern states, Muhlenbergia capillaris, commonly called hairawn muhly, is native, although it’s not as plentiful as in the past. When planted in its natural range, there’s no fear of contaminating nearby open space or wild lands with seed of exotic grasses.

Moreover, this grass has evolved to live on the natural rainfall of these regions, and once established, it survives through years of extreme weather and extended drought. This grass need not be coddled to grow well even in partial shade, but rich soil and regular moisture stimulate larger more lush foliage mass.

In the West, the species Muhlenbergia rigens, known as deergrass, can be found in the tallgrass prairie westward to the Pacific and south into Mexico. This is one of the species that fountain grass displaces when invading riverine habitats.

Deergrass loves sandy ground, offering a great choice for regions where soils are lean and rocky. This grass stands up to the worst of the Southwestern desert under simple drip irrigation, proving its viability in xeriscapes. Growing deergrass is actually helpful to the environment by releasing seed to recolonize the species in the wild.

Both of these muhlies produce dense, fine-bladed clumps of foliage.

Their uniform and compact growth make them valuable for lines and grids in modern design. In more naturalistic groupings, it’s suited to both wild gardens and Asian themes. They are the essentials of any habitat garden. Try this grass for “nesting” boulders into the landscape, where roots can travel beneath the stone where it’s always cool and moist.

The most popular muhly of all is a very showy variety of Muhlenbergia capillaris called “Regal Mist.”

This cultivar is a real stand out in late summer as it flowers in bright magenta pink.

This grass offers welcome color during the doldrums of August when little else is in bloom.

From midsummer on, grasses are stellar performers until the first frost but then continue to stand tall in the winter garden as the last of its seeds are shed.

This year, plant muhlies without guilt, knowing that these native American grasses are not only beautiful to behold, they are a “green” choice that enhance both your garden and the environment.

Maureen Gilmer is an author, horticulturist and landscape designer. Learn more at www.MoPlants.com. Contact her at mogilmer@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 891, Morongo Valley, CA 92256.