How To  Garden With Grasses
How good are grasses?
We think they are fantastic!

Grasses are great garden plants, practical and ornamental, low-maintenance and high-style - and we encourage everyone to plant more of them.
But what are grasses?

 

What's a Grass?

poa true grasses

If you ask a taxonomist (they're the people who categorise plants into species), they say it's anything belonging to the huge Poaceae family.
It's got twelve thousand members! That's a LOT of grasses...

Poaceae includes native poa tussock grass or bluegrass, the plants that give the family its name.

We have four kinds of Poa in our range : coastal Poa poiformis, blue Poa sieberiana, hybrid Poa Rustic, and Poa labilliardieri tussock grass.

All are tough, fast-growing, grow well in a range of locations, are first-rate bank binders for erosion control, and safe havens for wildlife.

Poa grasses are often recommended for planting by local council planting lists, and for bushland-adjacent gardens.

 

poa true grasses

True Grass

Along with traditional lawn turf and sports pitch grasses, the huge Poaceae family of grasses also includes these four relatives.

 

Clockwise from top left : low-growing, soft-to-touch, turf-like no-mow velvet grass (Zoysia), a gentle green lawn-alternative;

steely silver, super-slender and cold-hardy blue fescue (Festuca), very ornamental;

deep red Japanese blood grass (Imperata) - plant this one in a black pot and place it where the sun can shine through *chef's kiss*;

and fluffy cream-plumed swamp grass (Pennisetum), a favourite group of plants for all kinds of landscaping and garden planting.

 

poa true grasses

Poa also includes some larger, highly ornamental grasses that look attractive in a range of garden styles.

 

Clockwise, from top left : native speargrass (Austrostipa), and native wallaby grass (Austrodanthonia), blurring hte line between wild garden and created outdoor space;

bold burgundy-purple fountain grass (Pennisetum) which comes in a tall bold form to chest-head height, and smaller compact form reaching around calf-knee high;

and tall plumed silvergrass (Miscanthus), really popular right now for on-trend garden schemes.

 

And these grassy ornamental plants below are Poaceae too - we said it was a BIG family!
You can see they share family looks, across very different sizes of scale.

poa true grasses

Clockwise, from top left : tall tropical tiger grass, always a best-seller with our gardeners;
dwarf lookalike baby panda bamboo; ...

... giant bamboo canes;
and global food crops sugarcane, corn, wheat, oats, and rice! Yes, they're all from the same family!

 

That's because Poaceae comes from the Greek word poa, which means fodder.
So to a taxonomist, a grass is something you can feed to livestock. Or humans.

 

Bamboo and sugar cane. Not much good as a lawn. We gardeners know that horticulturally a grass is also something ornamental.
It grows in a clump, upright from the ground, and it has long fine leaves, or smooth slender stems that look like long fine leaves. Things that look like a grass, we call grass.

grasses

Grassy Natives

Like these natives, which might not be 'true' grasses but would be very at home in a grassy-style planting.

Clockwise, from top left : knobby club rush (Ficinia),

common rush (Juncus),

mat rush (Lomandra),

and tassel cord rush, a restio (Baloskion)

 

All make unbeatable choices for planting in revegetation and rewilding areas, for bank binding and erosion control, for low maintenance landscaping, and for wildlife-friendly gardens.

You'll often see them in parks, nature strips, and public access areas, because they need almost no maintenance once established.

 

Three come as they are, in one standard flavour; but our mat rush Lomandras come in a wide assortment of mature sizes, leaf colours from lime green to steel blue, and cultivars bred for wet soils or dry climates - so you'll always find one that's perfect for you.

grasses

Grassy Groundcovers

In our Grassy Groundcovers category you'll also find not-true-grasses-but-very-grassy-looking-plants such as these landscaping favourites.

Clockwise, from top left : sedge (Carex), a very resilient family of plants that can grow in some tough situations and still look garden-ready;

lilyturf (Liriope), rugged and attractive, happy in sun or shade, with bonus flowerspikes in purple, pink, lilac and white;


mondo grass (Ophiopogon), always a popular plant for mass planting, lawn effects, edging and between pavers;

and coastal favourite sea thrift (Armeria), a lawn-turf lookalike until those papery pink and white buds pop up!

 

When you're planting your grassy garden, you might even include some bolder strappy-leaved plants, to create a textural contrast with the more fine-leaved grasses.

Such as NZ flax (Phormium); native blue flax (Dianella) ; and even native grass trees. They're pretty grassy, right?

As you can see, there's heaps of choice; whether you plant genuine dinky-di Poa family grasses, or something more ornamental and grass-like to achieve the garden look you want.

 

We say if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... you'll find it in our Ground Cover Grassy category. All the slender-leaved plants we gardeners use in ways we'd use "true" grasses - for landscaping, for lawn looks, around pavers and paths, and as soil-cooling weed-suppressing ground cover. Simple.

Spacing & Planting

Ozbreed trial garden

If you're creating a mass planting of groundcovers, take a look at the width of a mature plant. You'll find it on each product page, and for grasses it's often around the same as their height.

For fast coverage, or for a dense lush look, plant them half their mature width apart from each other.

If you are patient, or you want a loose airy feeling, or you are planting other plants in between, plant your plants their full mature width apart.
That way, once they are full-grown, their leaf tips will just be touching.

 

Plant in a pattern like the five spots on a dice, so the plants fill the space evenly, and with a natural effect. You'll find more help on this here : How Many Plants You Need For Your Groundcover

Rejuvenate Tired Grasses

chopped lomandra

Mature grassy plants looking a bit tired and lacklustre, or showing a few dead leaves after winter?

Give your grassy plants a quick once-over with the whipper-snipper or a sharp pair of shears at the end of winter, when frosts have finished, and they'll burst back into fresh growth in spring.

Like this pair of Lomandra plants, freshly shorn.

It's a great way to rejuvenate another strappy-leaved plant too - you can use the same technique on kangaroo paws to keep them healthy and free-flowering.

Kangaroo paws respond very well to a haircut, especially in more humid climates. You can find out more in our our post How To Grow Kangaroo Paws With Success

Check local council lists

national park bushland

If your garden backs onto bushland or national park, you might have restrictions around what you can plant.
Check with your local environment officer or similar to find out what is allowed in your local area.

Many local council and regional approved-plant lists include several native Poa grass species, and native rushes Juncus and Ficinia, recommending them as safe to plant by bushland. So you can plant these in confidence.

 

If you've inherited a garden of grasses, and you live by bushland, removing the seedheads before they mature and open will greatly limit the spread of your grassy plants.

If you're planting a new garden near bushland, choose sterile or low-viability varieties of grassy plants as these are much less likely to set any seed that will germinate.
Pennisetum Nafray and Pennstripe; and Liriope Just Right, are bred specifically for this.

 

Choose the right plants for you

You can filter all our plant categories for sunlight, temperature, water, and your soil type, to find the perfect grassy plants for your garden.

You'll also find more help and info in our posts on

Which Dianella Is Best For You
Which Plants Are Best Lawn Alternatives