I grow its cousin, Deschampsia caespitosa (Tufted Hairgrass) and love it. It self-sows for me, but I don't mind, because it's easy to dig the volunteers and put them where I want them.

If your soil is high in clay, I'd amend with sand, greensand and highly composted matter. You want to achieve very well draining soil, and it must also drain well in winter. No peat. It holds water too well.

Full sun in Spring, Fall and Winter is a good place for cool season grasses. They do their active growing in Spring and fall, and will appreciate protection from Summer sun.

Thanks Donn. Good news about cool season grass doing well in spring, winter and fall sun. That certainly opens possibilities. I have searched in vain for that particular bit of information.

That Deschampsia variety is one I ran across in a book I checked out from the library. Its an American native, unlike the European ones like you have (which are prettier) but that part kind of appealed to me. This one does have pretty yellow, fine leaved foliage though.

I find so much conflicting information on zone ranges and exposure, it gets confusing.

Hi there,
I came across D. flexuosa when botanizing with a university group in the region near Berlin. They grew in semi-shady wood land, mostly with Pinus sylvestris (European Pine?) and often together with European Blue berry? (Vaccinium myrtillus). Soil is mostly very sandy, acidy, well draining and they got along with about 560 ml (22 inches) annual rainfall.

In a standard book on perennial by a very respected team of authors (Hansen and Stahl) it is recommended for difficult, dry spots and a warning is given that they can spread by seed when planted in sites with (too) good soil.
I agree on using sand to ammend the soil. Water logging/ stagnant water in winter could cause a problem.

In general they are tough as nails and can live through a drought in summer after they are well established.
The mentioned D caespitosa is completely different prefering damp meadows.
Hope that helps, cheers, Lin

Thank you for the information Linaria. I live on a slope and drainage is never a problem due to run off. Watering in summer is difficult. I'm putting this on my list of seeds and plan to grow it in that difficult area in front of where I put the Leymus. Yellowish finer foliage in front of coarser blue with large padded cactus in the foreground. Might look really nice for color.

I grow numerous Deschampsia caespitosa, which do very well in rich woodland beds with average moisture and partial sun of 3 hours per day or so. When in bloom this species is gorgeous, and rivals the non-native ornamentals. It might do better with your clay soil than D. flexuosa, and although it is more of a wetland plant mine tolerated the dry summer we had this year reasonably well.

I bought seeds for Deschampsia flexuosa last year, but didn't sow them yet so this year I hope to winter-sow them and experiment with growing them in the conditions similar to what you describe as I have a lot of dry shade too.

I grew Chasmanthium latifolium from seed, another nice native with ornatmental seedheads. It's growing in dry mostly shade and it flowered well there - but it's very floppy. I'm thinking it wouldn't flop as much if it were getting a bit more sun.

Terrene,

I haven't ordered any seed yet, I am still going back and forth. I have a spot between my house and the one next door that is on the west side so the only sun is what is right over head as it passes over. I think it would be safe to say its three hours because the houses are about 14 feet apart, but both are two story houses. I really like the D. caespitosa better and if yours blooms with that amount of sun, I am really tempted to try it instead. Its an easy spot to water, right by the hose and flat ground. Is it easy from seed?

A grass I have very good luck with that you might want to consider in dry shade is Stipa tenuissima (threadgrass). I ordered seed a long time ago from Plants of the SW for $2.50/packet(no shipping cost) mine does really good in shade or sun. Its a weeping grass with very fine, hairlike blades so there is no flopping problem. It will make a good 2ft wide and tall clump and looks real nice in groups since they all lean to the same side. It is listed as full sun but mine do great in a lot of shade. It likes it dry and will die if too much moisture, especially in winter (so the catalog says). I grows very easy for me and is tolerant to zone 4. It reseeds rather prolifically but they are easy to manage. You easily end up with enough of them to experiment with planting them in different spots. They need cool temperatures to germinate and I always get them coming up in fall, winter and spring.

I bought 3 D. caespitosa plants originally, and they have reseeded numerous babies, so they sow themselves quite readily. They like to sprout in the paths with wood chips (as do other seedlings). This would indicate they are easy to germinate. The other grasses I've started from seed have been easy, I sow them in 2 LTR bottles and make little plugs.