{"id":31,"date":"2006-10-16T09:57:20","date_gmt":"2006-10-16T17:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=31"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:26","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:26","slug":"marvelous-miscanthus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/marvelous-miscanthus\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvelous Miscanthus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone is familiar with the classic love\/hate relationship.\u00a0 You come into contact with a person or thing–usually, in my experience, it’s a person.\u00a0 You find that there is much to admire about the person, but the he or she also has traits that drive you crazy.\u00a0 From the sound of it, the late, great English garden guru Christopher Lloyd was like that.\u00a0 He was a brilliant plantsman and extremely generous to those of his gardening friends of whom he approved, but he could also be curmudgeonly and sometimes downright rude.\u00a0 What’s more, if you weren’t careful, his ever-vigilant dachshunds, who always had botanical names like “Dahlia”\u009d and “Tulipa”\u009d, would bite you. \u00a0I presume the bites were not all that serious, but Lloyd’s friends apparently were content to watch their ankles and tolerate the frequent threat of canine teeth.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have a similar love\/hate relationship with miscanthus grass.\u00a0 This native of China and other parts of Asia also goes by an array of common names like Maiden Grass, Zebra Grass, Porcupine Grass, Eulalia, Silver Feather, Chinese Silver Grass, Eulalia Grass, and Japanese Silver Grass.\u00a0 “Eulalia”\u009d sounds like it should be the name of a character in a Eudora Welty novel, and is one of the most common and old-fashioned miscanthus nicknames used by U.S. gardeners.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You have probably seen one or more of the available miscanthus species and cultivars.\u00a0 They are all clump-forming grasses, the largest of which can grow to be five or six feet tall and wide.\u00a0 The sharp-bladed foliage is between one half and one inch wide and arches gracefully out from the clump.\u00a0 In the fall, tall flower spikes tower over the leaves.\u00a0 At first the spikes are distinctly stiff in appearance, but when the miniscule individual flowers open, the look is soft and fuzzy.\u00a0 The spikes are wonderful for dried arrangements, but they will also persist on the stalks, providing interest all winter.\u00a0 I usually compromise by clipping some and leaving plenty on the plant.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 According to garden historian Denise Adams, miscanthus, or at least the Variegatus or striped species, has been used here since 1873.\u00a0 As with many old-time plants, miscanthus has been in and out of vogue.\u00a0 The most recent vogue began roughly in the 1990’s when interest in garden naturalism collided with a vogue for grasses and other tough, adaptable, easy care plants.\u00a0 Washington D.C.-based landscape architects Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden were early exponents of ornamental grasses and used them extensively in the large landscapes in which they specialized.\u00a0 As Oehme and Van Sweden’s fame grew, and their landscapes began to appear in leading garden and shelter magazines, the vogue for miscanthus and other grasses also grew.\u00a0 Now, grasses are so well-accepted that you can buy some species at Home Depot or Walmart.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I resisted ornamental grasses for several years because I had a hard time appreciating their charms.\u00a0 My garden is not large, and I wasn’t sure that I had room for a big, bold ornamental grass.\u00a0 But, as so often happens, I saw a small, extremely alluring pot of Miscanthus sinensis Zebrina, or striped miscanthus grass in one of my favorite garden centers.\u00a0 I couldn’t help myself.\u00a0 I plucked it off the pallet, brought it home and installed it in a semi-sunny spot in front of a large holly.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That little one quart pot of striped miscanthus has now grown into a glorious behemoth that is over six feet tall in flower and at least four feet wide.\u00a0 It has overwhelmed everything around it, including weeds, for which I am grateful.\u00a0 However, it is also threatening to engulf my new yellow-flowered magnolia, and that’s where I draw the line.\u00a0 It’s definitely time to divide the miscanthus.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can divide miscanthus any time, but I have don’t like doing so in the fall, when it looks so glorious.\u00a0 The best time is in the spring, when you can cut back all the dead foliage and divide the plant just as the young green shoots are emerging from the ground.\u00a0 Next spring I will have to get out my sharp spade and pruning saw, and attempt the task.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miscanthus has extremely tough roots.\u00a0 When you divide the plant, you first have to dig up the clump, and then use a tool to cut the clump into reasonable size divisions.\u00a0 I find that this is best done with an old pruning saw, but you could also use a garden knife or a hatchet.\u00a0 Once you have succeeded in cutting up the clump, you have to find spaces for the divisions.\u00a0 Knowing that these will grow as large as the parent plant, it’s best to see if any of your gardening friends or relatives could use some miscanthus.\u00a0 If they can’t, then discard the extras without guilt, or at least put them by the curb with a sign that says “free to a good home.”\u009d\u00a0 They often disappear mysteriously that way.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miscanthus is not only tough and easy to grow, but deer hate it, so it is highly prized by deer-bedeviled gardeners to love.\u00a0 However, once you have sweated, cursed and cried while trying to divide it, you’ll understand the “hate”\u009d aspect of this particular “love\/hate”\u009d relationship.\u00a0 As with all such situations, you’ll just have to decide whether the bitter outweighs the sweet.\u00a0 At least miscanthus will never embarrass you in public or criticize your housekeeping.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone is familiar with the classic love\/hate relationship.\u00a0 You come into contact with a person or thing–usually, in my experience, it’s a person.\u00a0 You find that there is much to admire about the person, but the he or she also has traits that drive you crazy.\u00a0 From the sound of it, the late, great English … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1741,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/1741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}