IF THE GRASS IS NOT ALWAYS GREENER …

by Peter W. Gribble

It’s July, the start of tomato harvest season. For a comprehensive column on this marvellous fruit check out the Pots & Plants archive for July 2019 here.

Meanwhile, in the background are the steady and reliable grasses.

A well kept lawn — once a homeowner’s pride and joy, but difficult to attain in a patio garden.

Lawns are a sensuous pleasure on bare feet; they calm the distracted eye and the smell of a freshly mowed lawn is a scent of summer. Yet not so long ago, the condition of your front yard lawn indicated the degree of success, wealth and moral integrity within the house it fronted. In the ’50s and ’60s, husbands of suburbia discussed not just their cars, investments, boats, office, workshop, wives and children but their lawns as well.

I was six or seven when I remember men, with families in tow, knocked on our door to ask my Dad how he got his lawn so picture perfect. Our front lawn was a botanical iconostasis – something to approach but never cross. My brother and I were forbidden to play anywhere near this living brocade of perfect green. The back lawn was different: it was ours.

My parents worked as a team - building up the front lawn from scratch. They amended the soil, graded it, raked it, seeded it by going in different directions with the spreader open to specific gauges depending on direction, rolled the seeded yard with a hefty roller (with the amount of water carefully measured into the drum until it reached the desired weight), watered it, felt its pulse, took its blood pressure, whatever else it required. When the front yard was nothing but flattened dirt we were told, ‘Don’t walk on the baby grass!” We saw nothing until two weeks later a faint green mist hovered over the ground. With judicious watering the green eventually thickened, filled in and began being carefully cut with the lawnmower blades at selected heights dependent on grass length. Dad mowed the lawn, never Mother, and I seem to remember during the first month of mowings he wore special soft shoes for the task.

Weeds did not have a chance – except once – for, between mowings, Mother or Dad pulled a wide waxy bar across the entire lawn. It was 2,4-D, the only herbicide available in that bygone era. The smell was distinctive but results were proof of its effectiveness. I remember one day my parents were astonished to discover an anomalous leaf had snuck up amid the blades of grass. What exotic mutant could withstand the all powerful 2,4-D? So curious were they to discover what it was they let it grow, examining its imperturbable progress every day. A flower bud showed and swelled. Excitement grew. My Dad got the camera ready ... and was utterly disgusted when it proved to be a dandelion. Out it came and the 2,4-D marched on parade several times that week – my brother and I told to come and go through the back door not the front. No weed ever tried again.

Our front lawn was no botanical Axminster carpet but something next of kin to Persian. This enviable success was due entirely to my parents strictly following the prescribed formula for the perfect lawn set out in a pamphlet issued by the government of the day. Louis St. Laurent or John Diefenbaker would have been prime minister around this time. I would’ve loved to have read this pamphlet as an adult but unfortunately, it disappeared years ago, probably during a move. My parents did keep the roller for another thirty years until they downsized to a lawnless state. To this day, I automatically avoid walking on a well-kept lawn, but if obliged to I always feel an inward wince.

A roll of turf may seem like a good idea, but think it out again!

Years ago back east an enthusiastic young friend decided he had to have a lawn on his balcony as a promise he would move up the middle-class ladder. He bought a six-foot long by eighteen-inch wide roll of turf, unrolled it and nailed lengths of two-by-four boards around it to edge it. He cut a round hole at the far end, inserted a cup and called it his one-hole pitch-and-putt golf course. His girlfriend was not a golfer but said she was allowed to enjoy a quick barefoot tickle on the grassy margins from time to time.

This cute garden feature was talked up by his friends, which was how I found out about it. He watered it conscientiously and was meticulous in trimming it with long shears to a golf green shortness. Many visitors had fun shooting their multiple hole-in-ones with his father’s borrowed putter while making jokes about the potential croquet and cricket pitches to come. At the time, I was without a lawn or garden so what did I know? I kept mostly quiet but suspected the golfing season would be brief.

Within two months it was looking sad. Yellowing patches were alternately soggy, parched, dormant or dead. There was not enough sun and their floor was high in the building and windy, causing the turf to dry fast. The lack of a nourishing, moisture-retaining yet well-draining soil substrate beneath it didn’t help. It dried to a shrunken, crusty, desiccated mat and not even the dog would pee on it. Eventually, it was composted and the last I heard, his girlfriend had retired his father’s putter to the hall closet.

People may scoff at rolls of turf yet I have seen where three rolls of it laid end to end in an otherwise small area, tree, shrub and perennial garden sharpened the edge of a garden bed. It was a green moat emphasizing a castle wall of ranked perennials. Being the only piece of lawn, it was an exclamation point on the landscape.

Meadow lawns with low growing flowers are gaining favour again and were once what lawns used to be centuries ago. This is the excuse I have to explain the drift away from my upbringing. I allow my lawn to serve up the first dandelions of the year to feed the bees. I note where the January and February dandelions bloom so I can remove the flower heads before they puff. Cold hardy bees come out hungry for the end-of-hibernation’s first breakfast that single dandelions provide. These January bees are slim, tiny things less than half an inch long appearing on warmer mornings on available dandelions. The bees are lightly fuzzy and likely belong to the large Andrena genera. They are quick to fly, making it hard to determine whether they have the characteristic fuzzy eyebrows between both eyes (called facial fovea by specialists.) I’ve never seen these bees in the afternoon. They’re morning shoppers.

Before the invention of the lawnmower in 1830, how were those vast expanses of meadow lawn cut and maintained? Some of them were set aside for foragers such as sheep, cows and horses. The rest were cut by scythes.

But there’s little room to swing a scythe on a balcony, so why not grow grasses that don’t need one?

Ornamental grasses offer a stately solace. An extensive selection exists of clumping varieties, which are the choice for pots.

The slow-growing and shade-tolerant Hokonechloa macra.

I started with the slow-growing shade-tolerant Hokonechloa macra, the Japanese forest or temple grass. Their bright, yellowy-green leaves have a layered, mounding, cascading habit reminiscent of bamboo yet only grows 12 to 18 inches high and wide. If you position a pot of it near a chair, meditative fingers will be tempted to comb through their obliging foliage.

Mine did well in a pot for several years then appeared to suffer from its confinement. This February it was time to lift and divide it and I found it terribly root-bound. It took an electric pruner and a bread knife to cut through the tight root ball but I was able to slice it into four pieces. Each piece was planted up in its own pot with a regular planter box mix and I was surprised how good they looked as if nothing had happened and were quick to fill out. Late winter to early spring is the only time to do this to Hakonechloa and most other clumping grasses.

The next grass straining quietly against my mild neglect was one of those, ‘Oh, why not?’ purchases.

Was the mystery bargain plant a Miscanthus sinensis? — Was the mystery bargain plant a *Miscanthus sinensis*?

On a discount rack was a small pot with three four-inch long attractive blades of grass shot through with white. Its identification tag was missing but the sticker said 75 percent off – an easy decision. I planted this nameless grass up in a bigger pot and left it to complement other potted plants. It slowly doubled in size and filled the pot until this spring it was clear it too required transplanting into a bigger pot but did not need dividing. There was the same happy result as the Hakonechloa: it perked up and grew. Its growth habit is clumping, upright with an arching tendency to its green and white leaves similar to varieties of Miscanthus sinensis. It’s late June now and it has again doubled in height to 16 inches filling the new pot to the edges. Next winter-spring: dividing.

Members in the Miscanthus sinensis genera possess a calm elegance and beside the nameless discount grass I’ve added a pot of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Cosmopolitan’ also known as Japanese Silver grass. Admittedly, this is an ambitious choice for even a large pot – the tag says it grows 72 inches tall with its fall-blooming puffy silvery plumes and 48 inches wide. Mine is somewhat dwarfed at the moment by its 18 inch pot but we’ll see how it goes.

For an earlier bloomer, Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Lightning Strike’ is a good choice with its narrow leafed and slightly stiffer leaves with white centres edged in green growing 24 inches high by 36 inches wide. The slightest breeze moves the leaves and its feathery inflorescences emerge late spring - but don’t cut them back after they’ve dried. They flash bright silver when the sun hits them in the fall and winter. This is true for the other feather reed grass, the immensely popular Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster,’ which is larger.

Not knowing it had a reputation, I bought the dwarf Cortaderia selloana ‘Splendid Star’ Pampas grass, thinking its compact 24 inch high by 27 inches wide growth made it a good candidate for a large pot. Clumping with long arching leaves streaked with gold (mine appears more silver), the tag mentioned the elegant feather-like plumes might take five years to show. So far, mine is growing nicely in an 18 inch diameter pot.

Pampas grass … a graceful plant with a shady past.

The tag did not mention what a colleague told me only last week. The large spectacular variety of Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) with its tall gorgeous white plumes was more often planted in front yards during the 70s and 80s to flag interested passers-by that the people within were swingers. Word of this cultural signalling has only lately circulated, causing pampas grass sales to fall. Unfortunately, once established, the giant Pampas grass – still gorgeous with its fifteen-foot tall plumes swaying radiant in the sun – is next to impossible to remove short of a backhoe, divine intervention or nuclear weapons. Stick to the dwarf variety and keep it restrained firmly, quietly, discreetly in a pot. If you’re still squeamish, you can always hide it behind other plants at the back of the border ... which illustrates again the beauty of growing things in pots: you can always move them around.

Less fraught, less large and attractive as a single is the new variety of Festuca glauca ‘Blue Whiskers’ ideal in a 10-inch pot. It’s a rounded clump with long fine leaves of a bright silvery blue. It is also deer and rabbit resistant, an important advantage for apartments and condos with this problem.

A durable grass of a warmer colour is Prairie Fire™ Sedge, more commonly known as Orange New Zealand sedge (Carex testacea.) It is a tough, drought-tolerant, winter hardy evergreen with bronzy, golden orange undertones amid the fine-textured green foliage. If grown in full sun the orange and warmer colours persist throughout winter months. It is clumping, growing 15 inches high and 36 wide according to the tag, but mine is already sixteen inches high and currently happy in an 18-inch pot.

These are beautiful companions to a garden whether planted in the ground or in pots. If you have a yard, a careful selection of ornamental grasses can completely replace a lawn and transform a property. On a balcony, potted grasses will frame and punctuate the space.

Not all grasses are greener on the other side yet their splendour is always close at hand.