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| Photo Credit: Gerald Klingaman |
| Pampas grass puts on a spectacular display every fall! |
Large and in charge – that’s pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana)! This big, bold and beautiful ornamental grass from the foothills of the Andes makes a great feature or border in any yard that’s large enough to show it off.
Even though this beauty has been growing in the US since 1848, it didn’t get much attention until Joseph Sexton, a nurseryman from Santa Barbara, CA, single-handedly started a fashion craze at the height of the Victorian age: He began harvesting and drying the plant’s showy plumes to be used as adornments on proper ladies’ hats and as home decorations in large standing vases in the corner of a room. Sure, today it would be a challenge to find any woman wearing one of these plumes (or a Victorian hat, for that matter). But you can still admire this attractive ornamental in many garden displays across warmer parts of the country. (And they look nice in a floor vase, no matter what the era.) Since it’s such a big plant, pampas grass needs lots of room in the landscape. In summer, it forms a big mound of graceful, medium-green foliage that gets bigger each year – sometimes forming crowns that measure 5 feet or more across. But come fall the real show starts: The plant shoots up 2- to 3-foot-long, silvery, feather-duster plumes atop round stems reaching 6-8 feet tall! The foliage is evergreen through the winter in mild areas, giving homeowners something nice to look at during those dull-garden months.
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