Winter in the Southwest: Gorgeous Grasses

 No matter where you live, winter is a slower time in the garden. Even though we’re able to garden nearly year-round, most of our plants are dormant during the colder months, preserving their energy for the spring explosion of growth and color. But does that mean your winter garden is drab and ho-hum? Not if you plan it correctly!

One of the biggest mistakes gardeners make is only planning for the growing season—packing the garden full of colorful perennials that do their thing in the spring, summer and fall. Then, come December and January, the garden is a yawn-fest with nothing to inspire. An easy way to combat the winter doldrums is by adding plants with winter interest—colorful or textural bark, colorful foliage or intriguing forms. There are plenty of shrubs and trees to pep up the winter landscape, but one of my favorite plants for kicking it up a notch year-round is ornamental grasses.

It’s a mystery to me why many gardeners cut their ornamental grasses down to stubs sometime in November—why have a grass crew cut for three months when you could be enjoying the winter form? Until it’s necessary to prune back later in the winter, leave them in their golden glory! The seed heads will appear more wheat-like, picking up the lower light and catching passing breezes. Best of all, grasses pair beautifully with most flowering perennials, evergreens and a variety of shrubs and trees.

One of my favorite shorter grasses is Graceful Grasses^® Fiber Optic Grass. It looks great towards the front of the border and interplanted with Superbena^® Purple. If you’re looking for a taller, statelier grass with winter interest, try ‘Desert Plains’ Fountain Grass. Taller grasses provide a dramatic contrast to the heftier forms of the agaves, cacti and yuccas that perform so well throughout our region.

Don’t forget container plantings, either—grasses like Graceful Grasses ^® Red Riding Hood (an annual in some regions) do well in containers, and they look stunning when paired with flowers in purple hues to pick up the foliage color.

Consider adding ornamental grasses to your garden—they not only perform well in our warmer climate, but they add textural interest and movement in the winter months when visual interest is sometimes hard to come by!

^© Proven Winners, LLC.