Fall Plant Sale Preview: 'Twilight Zone' little bluestem

Schizachyrium 'Twilight Zone'. Photo courtesy of Walters Garden Inc.

By Annie Yang

Schizachyrium ‘Twilight Zone’ stands out from other little bluestems by taking on a silvery purple color starting in midsummer instead of coloring up in the fall like its cousins. This prairie grass first comes out in striking pastel blue-green hues before intensifying into eerily purple tones and deepening into redder shades later in the season, providing a wonderful spectacle for months.

Schizachyrium 'Twilight Zone'.
Photo courtesy of Walters Garden Inc.

‘Twilight Zone’, a bit ironically, requires full sun and is both heat and humidity tolerant. It can grow in a range of soil moisture levels, though it prefers soils on the drier side, and it can grow in both acidic and alkaline soils. This sturdy plant does not require much fertilization either, and it can really thrive in places where other plants find it difficult to survive.

The strengths of Schizachyrium 'Twilight Zone’ are best showcased along borders or in a meadow garden. Like its other Schizachyrium relatives, ‘Twilight Zone’ supports pollinators like bees and butterflies and invites birds in with food, shelter and nesting material.

FALL PLANT SALE DETAILS:
Date: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018
Time: 9 a.m.-noon
Member benefits: Duke Gardens members get 10% off all purchases, plus access to the members-only previews sale from 8-9 a.m., and a full list of plants in advance! Join online or on site beginning at 7:30 a.m.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted. Please see Duke Gardens' pets policy here.
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Your support helps Duke Gardens to provide summer internships to aspiring horticulturists from across the nation.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word by sharing the event on Facebook and inviting your friends.
Thank you!

Schizachyrium 'Twilight Zone'. Photo by Beth Hall.

Fall Plant Sale Preview: Native Grasses

Native grasses in the Piedmont Prairie. Photo by Sue Lannon.

 By Annabel Renwick
Horticulturist
Blomquist Garden of Native Plants at Duke Gardens

Autumn brings cooler, shorter days and helps the garden transition from summer into winter. By September many of our garden plants have finished blooming and frequently gone to seed, but not so in the Blomquist Garden’s Piedmont Prairie. Many of the late flowering, native grassland species are just coming into flower, such as the asters and goldenrods, so it’s not surprising that so many of these late flowering U.S. natives have been cultivated as garden plants worldwide, extending the enjoyment of gardens until the arrival of frost.

Eragrostis spectabilis.
Photo: USDA-NRCS Plants Database. 

September is also the time when many Southeastern native grasses are in flower along North Carolina roadsides. It may come as a surprise to many, but grasses do have flowers. The tiny flowers or spikelets are formed on a flowering stem, known as an inflorescence, with the more “ornate” grasses having highly branched inflorescences or panicles. Some of these panicles can be so intricately branched that they appear as airy mounds of transparent fine lace. Purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) is one such species that has to be my favourite native grass planted in an ornamental setting. The gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis), Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and smooth blue aster (Symphyotrichum laeve) make super planting companions with purple love grass.

Particularly striking are the taller grasses such as Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) with its masses of golden, oat-like  panicles, and sugarcane plume grass (Erianthus giganteus), with its clusters of silvery plumes shooting skyward. Stipa gigantea (giant feather grass), a stunning grass with arching flowering stems reaching 6 feet, is a stalwart of English Gardens but as a Mediterranean native doesn’t adapt well to North Carolina’s  hot and humid climate or heavy clay soil. Indian grass would easily make a marvelous replacement for S. gigantea in a North Carolina Garden.

Sorghastrum nutans in the Piedmont Prairie. Photo by Cathi Bodine.

The striking Erianthus giganteus works well at the back of a border and could replace the commonly grown (and sometimes invasive) Miscanthus sinensis (Chinese silver grass) in local gardens. Generally grasses prefer growing in sun or may tolerate partial sun, but they will not thrive in shade.  Many local grasses are drought tolerant and prefer nutrient poor soil; they will grow in our local heavy clay soil, and as with most grasses they are deer tolerant.

Grasses have been used in ornamental plantings in the U.S. for more than 100 years. One of the earliest proponents of incorporating native grasses into U.S. landscapes was the Danish-born Jens Jensen who, at the turn of the 20th century, belonged to the Prairie School style of design based on the Arts and Crafts movement established in Great Britain during the latter part of the 19th century. In more recent decades, Dutchman Piet Oudolf has echoed Jensen’s philosophy, designing and installing grass dominated landscapes including the Highline in New York City.

Oudolf has written many design books using grasses, but one of my favorites is “Gardening with Grasses,” by Michael King and Piet Oudolf (1998). A second recommendation is “The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes,” by Rick Darke (2007).

Come to Saturday’s Fall Plant Sale and you’ll find these beautiful native grasses and many more.

FALL PLANT SALE DETAILS:
Date: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018
Time: 9 a.m.-noon
Member benefits: Duke Gardens members get 10% off all purchases, plus access to the members-only previews sale from 8-9 a.m., and a full list of plants in advance! Join online or on site beginning at 7:30 a.m.
Parking: Free.
Pets not permitted. Please see Duke Gardens' pets policy here.
Wagons + boxes: Our supply is limited; please bring your own if possible, and you'll have more time to spend gathering beautiful plants.
Your support helps Duke Gardens to provide summer internships to aspiring horticulturists from across the nation.
Please see our event page for more information, and we'd love for you to spread the word by sharing the event on Facebook and inviting your friends.
Thank you!

Class Preview: Make Your Garden Sing

Add "music" to your garden with ornamental grasses.
Photo by Bob Ayers.

By Rose James T'20

Plants whisper, seed pods clack and the wind rustles through leaves outside your door. A bird trills and a frog croaks, perhaps bringing you back to childhood games of hide and seek in your favorite neighborhood garden. A nearby brook bubbling might bring you back to a pleasant afternoon catching toads with your cousins or fishing with your grandfather.

Plants that attract birds will make your garden sing.
Photo by Charles Twine.

Our sense of sound is one of the strongest triggers for memories. A sound can bring to mind a person or place that you loved, or a favorite pastime. Sometimes this can be a happy accident. But like a composer, you can also shape your own environmental symphony to spark joyful memories or create new ones.

Whether your garden spans many acres or a small bed, consider adding sound to your design principles of form, function and color. Hilary Nichols can help you weave those sounds in a new two-session class at Duke Gardens, “I Need a Plan: The Musical Garden.”

Nichols is garden manager at the Durham nonprofit SEEDS, an urban sanctuary focused on promoting the principles and practice of sustainable agriculture, organic gardening, food security and environmental stewardship. She strives to live her life intentionally, and she loves sharing her design and horticultural expertise to help gardeners at all ability levels create gardens that sing to ears and eyes alike.

Streams and rain gardens are perfect to add a croaking frog
or two to your chorus. Photo by Sue Lannon.

The plants you choose, and the way you arrange your plants, will influence the musicality of your garden, Nichols says. Enjoy the wind strumming the blades of ornamental grasses or rattling autumn leaves. Place a large-leafed plant near your favorite window to enjoy the rain pattering on the leaves. Select plants that attract insects or birds to add a percussive buzz and lilting song. Study the life-cycle of your plants to create a garden in bloom throughout the year, drawing animals to your garden in different seasons.

Sign up for “The Musical Garden” and Nichols will have your garden singing in no time.

“I Need a Plan: The Musical Garden” meets on two Tuesdays, Oct. 11 and 18, from 6:30-9 p.m. To register, or for more information, please call 919-668-1707 or email gardenseducation@duke.edu.

Blogger Rose James is a Duke freshman and work-study marketing assistant at Duke Gardens. 

"Zoom In: Grass Family"

Grasses provide gorgeous color, texture and architecture. Photo by Jason Holmes

Miscanthus flowers backlit by the sun.
Photo by Jason Holmes.

By Sarah Leach Smith

You may simply think of mowing your front lawn when someone starts talking about different kinds of grasses. Be prepared to have your mind blown – there are more than 10,000 species in the grass family! With varying heights, colors and floral displays, grasses have a lot to offer the home gardener beyond turf. 

However, having that many species to choose from can be overwhelming. Where to begin? Our upcoming class, “Zoom In: Grass Family,” may be just the ticket. This class will be taught by high school teacher Robert Thornhill, who is a passionate promoter of ornamental grasses, and will be held on Thursday, November 5. Thornhill was more than happy to oblige when we asked him to tell us more about his experience with this versatile plant family.

Thornhill teaching a class.
 Photo provided by Robert Thornhill.

 Q: Tell us about your background and experience.

A: I'm a high school science teacher during the week and a plant-lover on the weekends.  I fell in love with the floral world during undergraduate school in Alabama and then had the opportunity a few years later to pursue that passion as a graduate student at N.C. State, where I earned a master's degree studying the flora of longleaf pine savannas in the N.C. Coastal Plain.  For that to have counted as research, and not just pure pleasure, was inexplicably wonderful to me! 

Q: What can we expect from your class, “Zoom In: Grass Family”? What do you think participants will gain from this class?

The magical flowers of pink muhly grass.
Photo by Micaela Unda.

A: The class will provide an overview of the grasses, starting with their relationships to other, more familiar plants and then proceeding to their cultural and economic significance.  We will then delve into the morphology of grasses, with special emphasis on the unique flowers and fruits of the family (Yes, grasses produce both flowers and fruits!).  We will then proceed with a survey of some of the most commonly encountered grasses, including those used in landscaping and those growing wild.  Finally, we'll conclude with an examination of grass specimens--either pressed specimens brought into the classroom or living specimens in the garden (or, time permitting, both!).

Q: What are you most excited about in this class?

Close-up of Miscanthus flowers.
Photo by Micaela Unda.

A: Grasses are everywhere, occurring worldwide in nearly every environment--even Antarctica (which hosts only one other flowering plant species!).  They are the 5th largest plant family on Earth and the most economically important, providing over half of humanity's calories.  Yet despite their abundance and unrivaled importance, they are poorly known by almost everyone except well-trained botanists.  But this is totally unnecessary and even tragic, as grasses are far more accessible (and beautiful) than most people realize.  What excites me most about this class, therefore, is the opportunity to share the "secrets" of grasses with people who may not know their graminoid brethren--yet!

Space is still available in "Zoom In: Grass Family." For more information, you may visit the Duke Gardens website. To register, give us a call at 919-668-1707.