Ornamental grasses Omaha landscaping work hard so that gardeners don’t have to. With good drainage, they will grow in most soils. Once you start landscaping with ornamental grasses you will be amazed by how many varieties, sizes, shapes, and colors are available. Also, consider using an ornamental grass in a container garden, using the thriller, filler, and spiller theory.
How to use ornamental grasses in your Omaha Landscaping?
The many different varieties of interesting grasses provide an easy way to add color and contrast to a monochrome landscape setting. Whether you use them as screens, accents, or focal points, let ornamental grasses play a role in your garden or landscape.
Soften hardscaping
Ornamental grasses Omaha landscaping can soften the look of any hardscaping–pool, deck, wall or paving. Breaking up expanses of manufactured materials keeps your garden warm and inviting. Here, a mass of miscanthus softens the concrete edge of a swimming pool, the perfect place for grasses because they don’t attract bees.
Adds Privacy
Tall grasses in a large grouping can be a perfect solution for screening an unpleasant view. For best effect, choose tall species such as big bluestem (it can reach 6 feet or more), moor grass (it can reach 7 feet or more), or ravennagrass (it can reach 12 feet or more).
Test Garden Tip: Keep in mind that you’ll cut back ornamental grasses in early spring, so there will be a month or two while your grasses are growing that you won’t have a screen.
Texture
Ornamental grasses send out plumes of airy spikelets that look beautiful against the sky or evergreens. Leaves range from needlelike to flat bands. And growth mounds or arches. All that variety means you can easily add texture to your garden. Here, fountaingrass and miscanthus varieties mix well with black-eyed Susan, lavender and hydrangea.
Using Ornamental Grasses in Small Spaces
You may think grass is not a good choice if you have a small courtyard, deck or balcony space. However, many ornamental grasses (Pennisetum setaceum) do very well as container and bedding plants. Plant individual specimens in large containers for stunning focal points, or create a mini meadow in a small garden bed. These planting can provide privacy screening and make an interesting conversation piece in a seating area.
Colorful Containers
With their variety of shapes, colors, and sizes, grasses are perfect for container gardens. Here, for example, fiber opticgrass (in a simple terra-cotta container) decorates a plain old stone wall. The effect is maximized by a contrasting texture: a gray-blue echeveria.
Test Garden Tip: To create the most dramatic effect with grasses, look for the unexpected. Try contrasting colors (such as golden grass in a blue pot), textures, or shapes and sizes.
Muffle Sounds & Block High Winds With Ornamental Grass
Tall, fast-growing ornamental grasses makes excellent choices for softening high winds and noises in an urban setting. Create an excellent windbreak by planting a bank of tall ornamental grass along the perimeter of your patio or deck. The presence of greenery makes any setting more comfortable and inviting.
NOTE: When selecting grasses check how aggressive or invasive the grass is such as Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ the Maiden grass.
Decks and Patios
Don’t limit ornamental grasses to beds and borders in your landscape. Grow them in containers to add drama to decks and patios. Here, purple fountaingrass adds elegant texture to a rooftop garden.
Test Garden Tip: Annual or tender grasses, such as purple fountaingrass, are especially good choices for growing in containers because you need to replace them again in spring anyway.
Turn Your Backyard Into An Interesting Natural Meadow
Throw out regular lawn maintenance by planting low growing types of Native Sedge to create an interesting textured meadow. These kinds of grasses make an excellent, low maintenance groundcover adding interest to your yard and providing a natural habitat for native fauna.
One excellent choice for low growing Native Sedge is called Carex (aka: California Meadow Sedge). This is a native grass from the West Coast throughout the US and into Canada.
Types of Ornamental Grasses Omaha Landscaping
- Switch panic grass or switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) – a drought-resistant grass that does well under both partial shade and full sun.
- Blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens) – a grass ornamental with blue or green leaves that looks great in landscaping due to its color.
- Karl Foester (Calamagrostis x acutiflora) – one of the most popular feather reed grasses.
- Hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra) – a deer resistant grass native to Japan. Known for its attractive gracefully arching and slender foliage. Perfect for a landscape garden setting.
- Beard grass or little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) – a North American grass native in most US states and some parts of Canada-US border.
- Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) – a clump-forming, warm season.
- Weeping brown sedge (Carex flagellifera) – a distinctive ornamental grass with golden brown color that grows up to five feet tall.
- Ribbon grass or reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) – a tall perennial bunch grass distributed widely in Asia, Europe, North Africa and North America.
- Zebra grass (Miscanthus sinensis) – grows up to 13 feet and forms clumps from a rhizome buried underground.
- Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima) – grows quickly and naturally through reseeding.
- Chinese fountaingrass, dwarf fountain grass or swamp foxtail grass (Pennisetum alopecuroide) – warm season, a perennial and ornamental grass native to Asia and Australia.
- Blue Fescue -in the world of ornamental grasses, fescues are considered low-growers and are often used as edgings, borders, and ground covers.
Arbor Hills Landscaping Company Omaha | Ornamental Grasses Omaha Landscaping
Arbor Hills Trees & Landscaping Services can provide you with everything from detailed maintenance programs to unique plant production, and other services in between. That means we build water features, walls, patios, irrigation, walkways, outdoor kitchens, lighting and anything else you can help us dream up. Our professionally trained staff can build the landscape of your dreams and keep you from breaking any Home Landscaping Rules.
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Imagine the sight and sound of bubbling water as you relax in your outdoor sanctuary. A water feature can give just the right ambiance to your outdoor retreat. Or, if you are looking for a water feature with traffic-slowing curb appeal, a designer from Arbor Hills will help you choose the water feature that best enhances your home. More…
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Plants and shrubs are the backbone of your landscape and should be the first things you plant. Proper selection will enhance a home’s appearance and increase property value while reflecting the homeowner’s style and personality. More…
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Let our trained nursery professionals assist you in selecting the perfect tree or shrub to complete your landscape. We carry a selection that is unmatched in the Omaha and the surrounding areas and are willing and eager to explain our favorites. Improved varieties are introduced each year and we always strive to carry the best and newest – varieties more resistant to disease, shade trees better able to withstand storm damage and ornamentals in unique colors, shapes and sizes you have to see to believe. More…