Grasses

A guide to incorporating ornamental grasses in your garden design. Finding all the right places for grasses and bamboo; stunning photographs of grasses for all climates and every garden; beautiful borders, natural lawns, and do-it-yourself meadows.

Discover the versatility of ornamental grasses in your garden all year-round with this informative little book. It illustrates how to combine grasses with other garden plants for both subtle and explosive colour effects. Grasses can be used to bring exq

Expert grass breeder Martin Quinn and writer Catherin Macleod reveal the amazing diversity of ornamental grasses in this beautiful book. Unlike other plants, grasses offer texture, shape, colour, movement and even sound to create a dramatic and calming effect. They thrive in a variety of conditions, require little maintenance and are suitable for all garden types. With this comprehensive book, you too can transform your garden into an inviting oasis.--COVER.

How to identify 135 of the most common species of North American grasses, sedges, and rushes, with their economic and ecological importance.

Create stunning effects, from clouds of delicate meadow grasses to striking bamboo plantings by adding ornamental grasses to your garden. As well as providing a backdrop for flowering plants, they can bring movement and whispering sound to the garden.

Grasses Offer so Much More than the flat, green lawns beneath our feet. In the garden, spikelets of Briza media flutter in the slightest breeze, tall-stemmed Stipa gigantea makes a beguiling divider, and pennisetums glow like fireworks with the sun at their backs. When chosen wisely and used with care, grasses can endow the garden with showstopping appeal---requiring remarkably little work in return. Neil Lucas explains how to bring the magic of grasses to even the smallest of gardens. Inspired by the great American prairies, African savannah and other wild spaces, he shows how to perfect the balance between grasses and other plants, choose sustainable lawn alternatives that virtually care for themselves, and showcase the elegant lines and intriguing textures of grasses to glorious effect. Planting grasses in the right place is critical, and Lucas lists top performers for drought, waterside, containers, shade and more. Along the way, he explains how grasses contribute to a greener world through their use in rain gardens, green roofs and for erosion control. With an extensive directory profiling more than 450 gardenworthy grasses, rushes and sedges, this lavishly illustrated volume offers gardeners a world of possibilities.

Includes a selected plant catalogue of annual grasses; perennial grasses, rushes and sedges; and bamboos.

A practical and expertly illustrated field guide to over one hundred grasses, sedges, and rushes "No one will be able to claim that the identification of grasses, sedges, and rushes, which are of fundamental importance both environmentally and economically, are simply 'too difficult' after they have learned to use this excellent guide."--Peter Raven, President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden This elegant and easy-to-use guide is an updated and amended revision of Lauren Brown's seminal Grasses: An Identification Guide, which was first published in 1979. While maintaining the spirit and goals of the original edition--a portable, straightforward, and user-friendly guide for naturalists and plant enthusiasts--the new edition features more than one hundred grasses, sedges, and rushes that are presented with line drawings and color photographs, concise descriptions, and details on the uses of various plants throughout history. In addition, the authors are careful to highlight the subtle differences in similar species to avoid confusion, as well as offering relevant notes on plant survival strategies, invasiveness, and how different plants fit within the broader ecological landscape. Devoid of technical jargon, this volume is an indispensable tool for those curious about the often-overlooked grasses, sedges, and rushes that surround us.