ornamental grasses
Ornamental grasses are a group of plants that Hastate Design often features in planting designs.
The reason for favouring ornamental grasses in our planting designs is that they are wonderfully versatile, providing a variety of colours, shapes, textures and appearances. They can also be easily combined with perennial plants.
In a garden, ornamental grasses can play a key role in dividing the space, creating semi-permanent screens, they add height to the planting, repetition, and punctuations, as well as a hazy, see-through effect. Moreover, there is an ornamental grass that is suitable for any garden situation, either in the sun or a shaded area.
In addition, most ornamental grasses don’t require much maintenance and they deliver interest all year round, even in winter, when covered in frost, their dried skeletons and seed heads shimmer in sunlight.
In our naturalistic garden designs, one of our favourite ornamental grasses is Nassella tenuissima.
We favour this grass for its soft, wispy appearance, elegant, delicate movement and very good drought resistance. We love how it creates a transparent veil, through which the blurred colours of other plants can be appreciated. It ties the planting together, and often acts as a matrix, into which the plants are added. Finally, it changes its colour through the seasons – from soft green in spring into light yellow in autumn.