{"id":8269,"date":"2016-06-07T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=8269"},"modified":"2016-06-03T10:23:45","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T14:23:45","slug":"three-native-landscape-grasses-to-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2016\/06\/07\/three-native-landscape-grasses-to-try\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Native Landscape Grasses To Try"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leymus<\/a>

Blue Lyme Grass at the Atlanta Botanical Garden<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Nassellia<\/a>

Nassella tenuissima in UT Gardens, Knoxville, Tennessee<\/p><\/div>\n

These three native grasses are easy to establish\u00a0in average, dry to medium moist, well-drained soils and in full sun. They\u00a0tolerate a wide range of soils including\u00a0dry rocky sites, and are exceptionally drought tolerant. Figure on 1 to 2\u00a0years for each to become fully\u00a0established.<\/p>\n

Blue Lyme Grass<\/strong> (Leymus arenarus <\/em>\u2018Blue Dune\u2019) is a vigorous spreading cool season grass, 24-30 inches tall, with steel blue foliage and\u00a0arching growth habit. Blue Lyme is a\u00a0vigorous grower in warm areas of the U.S. (USDA Hardiness zones 4-10).<\/p>\n

Tall flower spikes appear in mid-summer. It grows in a wide range of soils, wet to dry, and in either full sun to partial shade. It grows less aggressive in dry, clay soils. Foliage remains evergreen in zone 8-10; otherwise, blades take on a beige tint in early fall.<\/p>\n

Prairie dropseed<\/strong> (Sporobolus heterolepsis<\/em>) is a clump-forming, warm season, perennial grass found\u00a0in prairies, glades, and open land areas native to\u00a0the Midwest U.S. (USDA hardiness zones 3-9). Light airy inflorescences (flower panicles)\u00a0rise several\u00a0inches above the fine textured, deep green foliage in September and October.<\/p>\n

Prairie dropseed\u00a0forms mounds of arching foliage, each 1 \u00bd feet tall and 3 feet wide. Leaf blades\u00a0turn a golden fall color with orange hues and later\u00a0to light bronze over\u00a0winter. Flower panicles have pink and brown tints, and emits a\u00a0hint of coriander or popcorn fragrance. Tiny rounded mature seeds drop to the ground from their hulls in autumn and serve up a morsel for\u00a0seed feeding birds.\u00a0 It generally does not self-seed in the garden.<\/p>\n

Mexican feather grass<\/strong> or silky thread\u00a0grass\u00a0(Naasella tenuissima<\/em>) is a light airy ornamental grass that flutters in the\u00a0slightest of breezes (USDA hardiness zones 5-10). Plant in\u00a0groups of 5 or more\u00a0to\u00a0create\u00a0waves of\u00a0fine\u00a0foliage.\u00a0In the first year irrigate over\u00a0the first 2-3 months until established and is highly drought tolerant from this point on.<\/p>\n

Their green\u00a0silky inflorescences will soften landscape areas from late spring into late summer, the plumes swaying in the slightest breeze. Plumes turn brown in late summer. Remove winter\u00a0dead growth at the start of\u00a0spring.<\/p>\n

\"Sporobolus<\/a>

Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepsis<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These three native grasses are easy to establish\u00a0in average, dry to medium moist, well-drained soils and in full sun. They\u00a0tolerate a wide range of soils including\u00a0dry rocky sites, and are exceptionally drought tolerant. Figure on 1 to 2\u00a0years for each to become fully\u00a0established. Blue Lyme Grass (Leymus arenarus \u2018Blue Dune\u2019) is a vigorous spreading cool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,398,657,707,1273,1281,778,674,806,1012,628,774,853,1081,688,625,843,812,1059,644,643,706,646,113,455],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8269"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8754,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269\/revisions\/8754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}