November 21st, 2013… see that white frost on our house roof? The growing season came to a halt this week in Portland with nighttime temperatures falling into the mid-20s. Cannas, dahlias, Eucomis, and other tender suspects blackened quickly, but ornamental grasses carry on. Grasses, sedges, and rushes are mainstays in my designs… my gardens wouldn’t be without them!

The first picture is Pennisetum x advena (syn. setaceum) ‘Rubrum’, a fountain grass I was so hoping to be winter-hardy in my move to Portland. But it remains an annual grass that I would never be without, in the ground or containers. Purchased and replanted every season, it’s definitely worth the investment and lives up to my “bang for the buck” mantra. The foliage begins to lose its reddish burgundy hue and sheen in late November, but the foxtail flower spikes are architectural and luminescent when backlit by late fall sun (as photographed on 11/22/13).

Another fountain grass that is a perennial mainstay in our garden (no need to replant every year) is Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Moudry’ (black fountain grass). Its flowerheads are stockier and more blunt than than red pennisetum, but the fuzzy flowers (spikelets) are magnificent when laden with frosty dew or freezing fog (we have a lot of that in the Pacific Northwest).

On our hillside where I need a taller grass, it’s Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ (4 to 6 feet tall). I’ve positioned several clumps on a north-facing slope where morning sun illuminates it. This time of year, when the sun is very low in the sky only occasional shafts of light stream through the clumps, but focuses your eye on the silvery flower plumes and grass blades shifting from green to yellow-gold.