One of the great benefits of ornamental grasses is their plumes.
You can dry these plumes and bring these beauties right inside you home! The
plumes will last for years.
Grasses are extremely easy to dry. Cut the plumes to their desired length just as the
plumes are fresh and the foliage has not yet started to turn brown for the winter. Bundle
together the stalks. I use 'quick-ties' to secure the bundle. Hang upside down in the
garage to dry. The ones that I hung to dry this winter maintained a lot of their foliage
color. Especially Miscanthus sinensis 'Strictus' which still sports its horizontal bands.
If you into flower arranging grass plumes are a great addition! You can have your own
abundant supply of these beauties by planning ahead now and planting grasses with the
plumes that you like. My favorite kind of plumes are the Miscanthus plumes. I took
pictures of the grass plumes that I dried from the growing season of 1998. These are
pictured in the following table.
| Miscanthus plumes are my favorite. Pictures left to right are: 'Silverfeder',
'Gracillimus', 'Strictus', 'Arabesque', 'Graziella', and 'Puenktchen'. Note that on
the 3rd and 6th pictures you can see the yellow horizontal banding. also note the
plume color differences. From near white to brown, to reddish. |
|
| Here are the big guys! Pictured left to right are Miscanthus
floridulus and Saccharum ravennae. Miscanthus floridulus plumes are about one foot
long and really thick. Saccharum ravennae is a bit fragile. |
|
| Here are some of the finer elongated plumes. Pictured left to right
are: Molina 'Skyracer', Calamagrostis acutiflora (s) 'Karl Foerster', and Calamagrostis
brachytricha. |
|
| The Panicum grasses have very airy plumes with millet seeds attached.
Pictured left to right are Panicum virgatum 'Squaw', and 'Northwind'. |
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