Ornamental grasses not only provide privacy, but also delicate flowers.
The thick foliage and tall stems of many ornamental grasses provide a natural privacy-providing alternative to a fence. Shield an entire side of your yard from a neighbor's view by planting a row of one or more types of ornamental grasses. A bench in a quiet corner of the garden can become a solitary sanctuary when tucked behind a dominating clumping grass. Any grass may spread beyond what you originally intended, so contain its roaming by either mowing near its border or installing a hard barrier at the time of planting.
Tall Grasses
Shield an entire side of your yard with multiple plantings of the clumping ravenna grass, Saccharum ravennae. It has gray-green mounding leaves that grow to a height of 9 feet. Light, feathery plumes showcase the top of the foliage. This ornamental grass puts on a fall color show by turning from vivid green to fiery red. Several plantings of maiden grass, Miscanthus sinensis, named variety Silberfeder, provide garden-edge privacy while displaying silver-white flowers in the spring. Maiden grass matures at 7 feet tall.
Medium Grasses
Another grass that can border a property line is big bluestem, Andropogon gerardii. A little shorter at 6 feet, it grows in a tall, narrow column. Its leaves are blue-green in the summer and russet in autumn. An ornamental, upright grass is feather-reed grass variety Karl Foerster, Calamagrostis acutiflora. It is narrow and grows to 4 to 5 feet high. Delicate white flowers adorn the top of the grass.
One-Plant Privacy
The giant feather reed grass, Stipa gigantean, can make a garden bench private on its own. The 7-foot-high foliage is bright green and thick. Light, feathery flowers rise above the foliage. Another massive clumping grass that can provide privacy on its own is the variegated giant reed, Arundo donax variegate. This ornamental grass displays corn-like leaves in striped green and white. It rises to a height of 7 feet or more.
Bamboo
Bamboo is an evergreen, woody-stemmed perennial grass that also can provide a privacy screen. While timber bamboo grows to 30 feet or more and large bamboo grows to 20 to 30 feet, clumping bamboo matures from 10 to 15 feet. Clumping bamboo does not need a barrier to contain it; running bamboo does. An ideal hedging bamboo is clumping variety Fargesia dracocephala, which has dark green foliage that grows to about 15 feet tall. A shorter clumping bamboo is Fargesia nitida, which tops out at 12 feet. It sports dense foliage and grows upright.
Related posts
Ornamental landscape grasses have showy flowers and seed heads.Landscapers, gardeners and homeowners use ornamental grasses for their luminosity, for the sound and movement they create, for their...
Ornamental grasses are available in a range of colors.Dancing in the breeze, tall ornamental grasses sway, creating swishing musical sounds. Some are crowned with feathery spikes of white flowers...
Ornamental grasses have a range of water requirements.Ornamental grasses range from low-growing, spreading groundcovers to clumping, upright perennials growing more than 10 feet tall. With this di...
Add grasses as focal points to the fall and winter landscape.Ornamental grasses add beauty to the landscape in every season: colorful leaf color in the spring and summer, flower and seed head inte...
Pampas grass is hardy in zone 7 if given good drainage.Ornamental grasses add a casual, naturalistic element to gardens, particularly to large landscapes. Gardeners in U.S. Department of Agricultu...
