Gardening Ideas
Elijah Blue Fescue Grass - $5.25 » Plantings for your rooftop garden can be tricky. I remember returning from a mere weekend away to find everything scorched. Consider hardy plants like blue fescue grass. Not only does it add a lovely texture to the garden, but it works well in containers, is drought and pollution tolerant, and it is an evergreen (except in northernmost climates).
If diversity is kept out of our cards, repetition can greatly improve our hand. Here a series of identical planters, sleek and smooth, forms a regiment along a beautiful wall. Each planter is topped with a highly contrasting variegated yucca to create a powerful contemporary scene. By the simplicity, maintenance is kept to a bare minimum.
Associating individual units of different types of grasses may at first sound counterintuitive, if not plain risqué. To reassure ourselves, let’s think of a painter juxtaposing various shades of the same color: The result is all about finesse and subtleties. A marvelous example of this approach can be found in the courtyard of the Petit Palais in Paris, shown here, with Pampas grasses (Cortaderia sp, zones 6 to 9) and Miscanthus, dominating this jewel of an all-grass composition.
Several types of grasses make fantastic ground covers, from ankle low (think fescue and sesleria) to shoulder high (switchgrass, miscanthus). Here we have a smart selection of grasses and a few companion plants that create a tasteful, restful and most likely low-maintenance and drought-tolerant composition.
Depending on your garden's surroundings, something as simple as a dry creek bed might be all that's needed to slow the flow of water, reduce the chances of erosion and give the water time to seep into the soil. In a setting like this forest, a simple palette of native plants that don't mind having their toes wet (think ferns, sedges and reeds) will appear right at home.
Rain gardens fill with water during and after storms. The water percolates into the soil and dissipates through a process called evapotranspiration, a combination of evaporation and the release of moisture from plants. Still, it is a good idea to plan for water discharge into an area away from buildings.
Some of the lower grasses are also welcome additions to the dry garden. With their fine foliage and tufted growth habit, they sway in the wind, contrast with thicker succulents and don't mind getting parched. Blue fescue (Festuca spp) and this Ponytail grass (Stipa tenuissima) are some of the best choices.
In the same vein but much hardier (zone 4 and up) are yuccas (Yucca flaccida 'Golden Sword' is shown here). Their rosettes of spiky foliage play a major role in any desert garden design; being so charismatic, they are the anchor around which other plants evolve. A creeping verbena fires off this combination.
If you mass blue fescue, be sure to place the plants close together (10 inches or so); it is not a clumping grass and will not fill in.
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