Have you ever stopped to watch a field of tall grass billowing in the breeze? I did it for the first time the other day, and it was a mesmerising, almost mystical sight. I was in the middle of another task at the time – watering some pot plants – when out of the corner of my eye an invisible wave rolled across the surface of a neighbour’s field, crested, and then broke against a beach of freshly ploughed ground like a wave breaking upon the shore. I stood and watched for another 10 minutes or so, transfixed, then raced inside to tell my wife the good news.
When my little family first moved to the country four years ago, our nearest neighbour told me about the old days at Hampton when rainfall was so plentiful, the grass grew as tall as the fences. Considering the paddock next door was bare dirt when we moved, I was sceptical. But this is the year. The rains have been generous and the grass is almost to the top wire.
Conditions have to be just right for the billowing effect to occur. It goes without saying that a field billows best, but the grass in the field must be tall, fine, and flexible. Then there’s the breeze. It can’t be too strong. Gentle and lilting is about right, with the odd gust rolling through to generate a crescendo. Add a dipping afternoon sun to create depth and texture, and you’ve got a scene fit to inspire Wordsworth himself.
Unless your backyard is a paddock, it’s hard to create a scene like this at home. But you can learn from it. While watching the grasses billow, I reflected on the lack of movement in formal-style gardens, which are all clipped hedges and clean lines with not a leaf out of place. Like a prim headmistress, they are static and funereal, all hair-in-a-bun and stockinged legs. But gardens needn’t be dour. They should touch the senses and refresh the spirit. In other words they should be poetic, and one of the best ways of creating poetry is by making the garden dynamic.
There are a couple of ways to do this. One is by embracing seasonal change. Formal, tightly clipped gardens avoid change by deliberately looking the same almost every month of the year. In contrast, dynamic gardens ebb and flow. They welcome the approach of winter and they celebrate the arrival of spring. Formal gardens are like monuments, frozen in time. Dynamic gardens are responsive.
The second way to create a sense of dynamism, is to choose plants that literally sway in the breeze. In the light of my “field of billowing grasses” experience, it should come as little surprise that my favourite plants for creating movement in the garden are ornamental grasses. They might be more refined than their wild, paddock dwelling cousins, but nothing beats them for catching the slightest puff of wind.
Any tall, flexible, fine leaved grass will do the job. But if you’re going to make a special effort, I’d recommend going for the best, and grasses don’t get any better than the various cultivars of Miscanthus sinensis. They’re tough, non-invasive, low maintenance, and most importantly, extremely graceful.
My favourite is an old variety called Miscanthus ‘Gracillimus’. It forms a beautiful vase shaped clump to around 1.8m tall, and produces lovely silver seed heads that catch the autumn sunlight. As a bonus, the foliage assumes tones of rust and copper during winter, with colours becoming more intense as the weather cools. Maintenance is simple. When green shoots appear in spring, simply cut the entire clump back to about 20cm from ground level with hedge shears or a whipper snipper.
Some other large Miscanthus cultivars of note include ‘Zebrinus’, which has lime green foliage marked with yellow bandings, and ‘Flamingo’, a tall grower that produces elegant swan necked flower heads that stand proudly above the leaves. ‘Silberfeder’ is another beauty renowned for its deliciously cool silver flowers. If space is limited, try ‘Eileen Quinn’, which reaches just 60cm tall and is wonderful planted as a drift, or the German cultivar ‘Kleine Fontaine’ (little fountain), which reaches a height of 70cm.
These selections are just the tip of the iceberg, so my advice is to experiment. If you’re keen to plant a suburban meadow, why not. If you’ve got space for just a single plant to catch the breeze, then that’s okay as well. Just do a quick check for potential weediness (remember my Mexican feather grass experience from a couple of years ago) and who knows – you might be inspired to pen a couple of lines in praise of billowing grasses too.
First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 1st May, 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Miscanthus ‘Gracillimus’
