Ornamental Grasses

I have seen people scoff at the idea of starting grasses from seed, but since I already have it I figured why not give it a try? Has anyone ever wintersown ornamental grass? If so I would love to hear what your experience has been.

La

La,
I've done zebra,jap.silver,love,ponytail,blue fescues,carex and others. All save the fescue have been easy to do.Named varieties my not come true from seed but some do such as panicum Prairie Skies has come true for me.

P

i'm actually WS'ing Blue Fescue this year. 100 seeds... i'm hoping i'm not inundated with them... but i can give them away too.

Donn is an expert on the ornamental grasses. He has wintersown many over several years. I haven't seen him here on the forum for a while, though, but maybe he'll stop in when he sees the thread title. Or you could dmail him.

Karen

I have gotten native grasses by winter sowing and am doing more this year.

Thanks for all the responses. I started some zebra grass and a switch grass (variety unknown) and I'm anxious to see how it does. I did grow some blue fescue from seed last year with pretty good success, but I started it inside. I think the nay-sayers scoff at starting OG from seed because it takes so long for it to grow to be of any size. Some one had given me the tip of starting several seeds in one hole to hasted the appearance of clumping which I did with pretty good results. I did the same with the seed I WS'd this year and hopefully it will also sprout as a "clump".

For those of you who have grown from seed in the past how long DOES it take for it get any size to it?

I bought some grass seed this year too. I got them from Park's Seed (item #1207) Melinis Nerviglumis-Ornamental Grass Savannah. It's got a pink/mauve seed head that will fade to cream in the fall. Supposed to "flower" from midsummer till frost. I plan to use them in containers.

I wintersowed "Purple Majesty" Millet last year with great success.

What about Pampas grass? Has that worked for anyone? It's not hardy here in zone 5, so I didn't know if I should just start it indoors. Tamara