Ornamental Grass and Grass-like Plants
Grasses, sedges and rushes give lasting interest in all four seasons and are at home in contemporary or cottage-style designs.
Annuals (8)
Butterfly Attracting (81)
Creative Containers (52)
Drought-Defiant (87)
Midwest Native (84)
Salt-Tolerant Plants (26)
Shade-tolerant (54)
Trees & Shrubs (74)
Acorus gramineus ''Ogon''
Common Name: Golden Variegated Sweet Flag
Golden Variegated Sweet Flag is a semi-evergreen to evergreen, bright yellow leaves with some green striping; flowers are insignificant. Prefers light shade and evenly moist soil....
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Acorus gramineus ''Golden Pheasant''
Common Name: Golden Pheasant Sweet Flag
Golden Pheasant Sweet Flag has narrow, strap-like leaves make a stunning appearance with their brilliant gold coloring that remains all season long. The new foliage is chartreuse and will attain the best gold coloring in full sun.
This cultivar is...
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Calamagrostis acutiflora ''Karl Foerster''
Common Name: Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass
Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass is a stately, upright ornamental grass that makes a great addition to any landscape. Can be used informally with naturalized landscapes or in formal mass plantings....
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Carex caryophyllea ''The Beatles''
Common Name: Spring or Vernal Sedge
Spring or Vernal Sedge has soft, dark green mop-heads that create interesting ground cover....
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Carex comans ''Bronze''
Common Name: Bronze New Zealand Hair Sedge
Dense, swirling clumps of hairlike, copper-bronze foliage are characteristic of Bronze New Zealand Hair Sedge. Prefers full sun in moist, well-drained soil....
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Carex flagellifera
Common Name: Toffee Twist Sedge
The slender, iridescent leaves of Toffee Twist Sedge offer an elegant sweeping, trailing habit. This cool season grass is a perfect complement plant that adds movement and texture to any container....
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Carex stricta
Common Name: Tussock Sedge
It's hard to beat Tussock Sedge for its rich green, fine-bladed foliage. The leaves of Tussock Sedge form dense mounds or "tussocks." Useful for water gardens, swales, around the edge of ponds or streams or in moist soil as a ground cover....
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Elymus canadense
Common Name: Canada Wild Rye
Canada Wild Rye is a fast-growing prairie grass is not only attractive, it also serves as an excellent native nurse crop for prairie seedings. The beautiful curving seedheads on five foot tall stalks resemble cultivated rye. Grows on an incredible ra...
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Equisetum hyemale
Common Name: Horsetail
Horsetail offers vigorously spreading clumps of cylindrical, gray-green to bright green stems with cream-colored bands accented by black fringe. Stems turn bronze in winter; flowers are cone-like spikes at the stem tips. Adapts to full sun or part s...
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Eragrostis spectabilis
Common Name: Purple Love Grass
Purple Love Grass has mounds of fine-textured, green foliage with clouds of finely-branched, reddish-purple panicles in late summer. Short lived but self-sows freely to maintain stands. Plant in full sun with average, well-drained soil....
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Festuca cinerea ''Elijah Blue''
Common Name: Elijah Blue Fescue
Elijah Blue Fescue is a clumping ornamental grass with outstanding icy-blue leaf color. Heat tolerance, evergreen quality and unique foliage color makes it perfect for edging borders or mass planting as a ground cover. Buff colored flowers rise above...
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Hakonechloa macra ''Aureola''
Common Name: Golden Hakone Grass
Golden Hakone Grass has graceful, arching leaves that are variegated with green and bright yellow. Plants form glowing mounds that are elegant along the edge of a border or pathway or in a rock garden. Pale green flower spikes add interest in late s...
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Helictotrichon sempervirens
Common Name: Blue Oat Grass
Blue Oat Grass is tougher and more enduring than blue fescues, cool season Blue Oat Grass is the best choice for accents. Tolerates full sun or light shade. Prefers fertile, moist soil but will grow in a wide range of soil; good drainage is essential...
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Imperata cylindrica var. koenigii ''Red Baron''
Common Name: Japanese Blood Grass
Japanese Blood Grass is a slow-spreading clump grass. Tall upright leaves emerge green with red tips in spring, turn completely red by late summer and fall, then copper in winter. Plant in full sun for best color with evenly moist, well-drained soil....
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Indocalamus tessellatus
Common Name: Bigleaf Bamboo
Bigleaf Bamboo is an extremely hardy semi dwarf species that bears the largest leaves of any bamboo in cultivation, up to 24 inches by four inches. It adapts very well to shaded sites and is a favorite pick for indoor container growth....
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Juncus effusus
Common Name: Soft Rush
Soft Rush is a common wetland species with unique, side stem inflorescence. Soft Rush will bloom from May through September. The plants will naturalize forming large clumps when left undisturbed....
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Liriope spicata
Common Name: Lilyturf
Lilyturf is a rhizomatous, grass-like perennial which forms a clump of narrow, arching, glossy, dark green leaves. Erect flower spikes with pale lavender to white flowers arise, somewhat hidden, among the leaves in late summer. Lilyturf flowers often...
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Miscanthus sinensis 'Variegated'
Common Name: Variegated Miscanthus
Green blades of Variegated Miscanthus have added highlights of creamy-white margins and mid-veins creating a shimmering silvery appearance. Variegated Miscanthus' appearance is fine-textured and it has a compact growth habit. Reddish-brown plumes add...
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Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light'
Common Name: Morning Light Miscanthus
Morning Light Miscanthus is easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. Tolerant of a wide range of soils from well-drained sandy soils to the heavy clays present in Midwest. Reddish-brown plumes in late fall add int...
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Miscanthus sinensis var. condensatus 'Cosmopolitan'
Common Name: Cosmopolitan Miscanthus
Cosmopolitan Miscanthus is a vigorous ornamental grass with broad, weeping leaves and feathery, beige, flower clusters. This graceful clumping grass stands out as a focal point in a border....
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Molinia caerulea subsp. Arundinacea 'Skyracer'
Common Name: Skyracer Tall Purple Moor Grass
Skyracer is a tufted, compact perennial grass with dense clumps of slender, foot-long green leaves marked with stripes of creamy yellow. In summer, slim, pale yellow flower stalks rise three feet above foliage in an arching pattern. Each inflorescenc...
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Nassella tenuissima
Common Name: Mexican Feather Grass
Fine hair-like blades of Mexican Feather Grass arch outward like a fountain head from a dense central crown. Produces feather-like airy flower heads in late spring that mature over summer. Mature clumps of Mexican Feather Grass are highly animated by...
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Ophiopogon japonicus ''Nanus''
Common Name: Dwarf Mondo Grass
Dwarf Mondo Grass creates a lush ground cover of dense, dark green grass-like clumps. Dwarf Mondo Grass is an evergreen dwarf form that is only half the size of the species. Excellent as an edging plant or tucked into rocks for a pleasing contrast. F...
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Panicum virgatum ''Prairie Fire''
Common Name: Prairie Fire Switch Grass
Prairie Fire Switch Grass is a cultivar boasting blue-green stems with wine-red leaves. Spring foliage is blue-green, but begins turning to a stunning red color by early summer. In late summer, a bouquet of rosy panicles is displayed just above the c...
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Panicum virgatum ''Heavy Metal''
Common Name: Heavy Metal Switch Grass
Native Switch Grass and taller Switch Grass cultivars can become floppy, but 'Heavy Metal' is shorter and the steely blue-green foliage is very upright. Next to the cultivar, 'Dallas Blues,' 'Heavy Metal' looks petite. It is well-suited to the border...
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Panicum virgatum
Common Name: Switch Grass
Switch Grass is a clump-forming, warm season native grass. Switch Grass plants provide cover for wildlife; birds feed on the seeds. Spreads both by rhizomes and seed....
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Panicum virgatum 'Rehbraun'
Common Name: Rehbraun Switchgrass
Selected for its rich red leaf coloring from mid-summer into fall, 'Rehbraun' Switchgrass grows well in full sun and average soil....
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Panicum virgatum ''Northwind''
Common Name: Northwind Switch Grass
Northwind Switch Grass is a medium grower which prefers full sun and good drainage. Northwind Switch Grass plants are erect and rather stiff and can tolerate some snow load before breaking down. The yellow flowers are golden during autumn. Small seed...
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Pennisetum ''Princess''
Common Name: Princess Napiergrass
Pennisetum 'Princess' is an exotic grass from South America. It is hardy to zone 8 but looks spectacular when planted as an accent or container plant in Northern gardens. The saber-shaped leaves emerge narrow, dappled green and purple and become prog...
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Pennisetum 'Prince'
Common Name:
'Prince' is a breakthrough in ornamental grasses. The purple foliage becomes even more purple as the summer gets hotter, quite a change to most plants that fade in summer heat. The habit is much fuller than other purple grasses and the growth is far...
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Pennisetum alopecuroides ''Foxtrot''
Common Name: Foxtrot Fountain Grass
Foxtrot Fountain Grass forms large, upright clumps topped in midsummer with 60-inch tall tan plumes. P. 'Foxtrot' has proven to be an outstanding, non-spreading, long-lived and reliable performer with much more vigor than typical P. alopecuroides....
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Pennisetum alopecuroides ''Hameln''
Common Name: Dwarf Fountain Grass
In late summer, buff-colored flower heads of Dwarf Fountain Grass pop up in profusion on 12" spikes. The graceful fountain-like plumes slowly change color from buff to soft pinks and light-colored maroons. One to three plants are effective in small g...
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Pennisetum setaceum ''Rubrum''
Common Name: Purple Fountain Grass
Rough stems with long, narrow, bronze leaf blades. From mid-summer to early autumn this Pennisetum bears pink to purplish pink spikelets that are plumed and bristled seed heads that nod. Purple Fountain Grass is great for use in mixed perennial beds,...
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Schizachyrum scoparium ''The Blues''
Common Name: The Blues Little Bluestem
The Blues Little Bluestem is one of several outstanding new selections of Little Bluestem grass, each with more intense grayish-blue summer foliage and deeper bronzy-red fall foliage. Sturdy, upright growth habit. The Blues Little Bluestem is nice co...
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Schizachyrum scoparium
Common Name: Little Bluestem
Little Bluestem is one of the best small, non-spreading, clump-forming native grasses. Little Bluestem's blue-green leaves turn reddish orange in the fall. Fluffy silver seed heads are ornamental through winter. Easy to establish and perfect in short...
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Sorghastrum nutans ''Sioux Blue''
Common Name: Sioux Blue Indian Grass
Sioux Blue Indian Grass has upright clumps of distinctly blue-green leaves that turn yellow in fall and tan in winter. Prefers full sun but tolerates light shade. Sioux Blue Indian Grass is most vigorous in moist soil, but drought-tolerant when estab...
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Sporobolus heterolepis
Common Name: Prairie Dropseed
Prairie Dropseed is one of the most beautiful native grasses. Very thin, emerald green leaves form a dense arching tuft. Seed heads form in August and give off a distinct aroma. The graceful clumps of Prairie Dropseed turn yellow or deep orange in fa...
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Stipa gigantea
Common Name: Giant Feather Grass
Giant Feather Grass is a show-stopping native of Spain, with jointed stalks that resemble lean bamboo. Airy ten-inch panicles of oatlike flowers begin as purple and ripen to pale, metallic gold. The graceful gray-green foliage of Giant Feather Grass ...
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