Ornamental grasses for your garden

Garden Making Editor-in-Chief Beckie Fox shows you a range of ornamental grasses in the beautiful setting of the Niagara Parks Botanical Garden.
We then take you behind the scenes to a major grower and plant wholesaler, Valleybrook Gardens in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., where Sales Consultant Tony Post explains how easy it is to grow ornamental grasses.

Grasses in video

The grasses shown in the video are:

• ‘Wind Dancer’ love grass (Eragrostis elliottii ‘Wind Dancer’)
• Giant reed (Arundo donax)
• Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica)
• ‘Blood Brothers’ switch grass (Panicum virgatum ‘Blood Brothers’)
• Maiden grasses (Miscanthus spp. and cvs.)
• Zebra grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Zebrinus’)
• Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra)

Valleybrook’s plants are marketed under the Heritage Perennials brand and they have more information online at perennials.com as well as a retailer locator.

Readers turn to the pages of Garden Making to learn about plants to consider for their garden. This video was inspired by a story in issue #7, Fall 2011, on shade-tolerant ornamental grasses. You can order a back copy:

Our thanks to everyone who helped on our first video, especially videographer Mark Disero.