Great Utility Box Plant Combination

One of my favorite combination of plants to hide the utility boxes is a mix of flowers that bloom at different times of the year, and a feather reed grass that provides a nice backdrop. Now, this combination also dies to the ground in winter so if you really wanted to hide a utility box you could use an evergreen shrub, but nevertheless over the years I found this combination works really well together:

• Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass
• Iris sibirica - Siberian Iris
• Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' - Huge purple coneflower
• Aster novae-angliae 'Purple Dome'

I learned that you don't want to have too many different types of plants, you want to have just a handful and have repetition so it looks really pleasing to the eye and not like just a hodgepodge of plants. 

Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'

Iris sibirica

Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'

Aster novae-angliae 'Purple Dome'

Trying to Stay Green During December Heat Wave

We had a couple days of upper 60's weekend, so I got a little bit of yard work done around the utility box bed. I also snapped a few photos of my yard status showing how it's trying to stay green as long as possible into the winter. It darn well should because I paid for extra treatments from the fertilizer company. I'm wishing I did some autumn mulching in places, but overall not too bad.

Can you tell which yard is mine?

This was the first year where the utility box bed in the front grew in all the way. In fact, the Russian sage went a little crazy - I'm glad it was considered a smaller version of Russian sage 'Little Spire' because I can't imagine how out of hand it would have been if it was a fuller version.

The Karl Foerster grass grew in nicely - very early riser in Spring and looked nice all year long. The only problem was that I didn't plan the mulch bed wide enough to acomodate the grass hanging over the edge a bit. I'm torn because I don't want to expand the mulch too much because it looks weird in winter to have this giant bare spot - but in the summer I don't like trying to mow under an ornamental grass and I don't want it to look crowded.

I'm also hoping my cone flower self-seed and multiply because the little pop of color is definitely nice so it's not JUST Russian sage getting all the attention.

Special shout out to Shasta daisy keeping dark green leaves this far into December. I got them over the 4th of July from my parents and it looks like they rooted in really well. My neighbors said I could go ahead and landscape their side of the box too. I know the Shasta daisy will spread but hopefully they don't mind - right now they just have a little tiny strip of mulch on their side.

Finally, and I know I've talked about it before, but I've got some serious white fungus on the grass in my side yard. In fact, when my roommate Kenny walked along the side yard I could see a little cloud of white powder get kicked up at his feet. Wooooow. I might have to re-seed that whole side yard come Spring.

White powder mildew on grass in both side yards now

Which Ornamental Grasses Wake Up in April?

I guess I didn't realize it, but I've collected a pretty good variety of ornamental grasses in under 1 year at my house. I have Hardy Pampas Grass, Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass, Northwind Switchgrass, and Blue Fescue. Two of these so far are showing signs of life and two are not at this point in April.

I was starting to get worried because I got most of these in the fall. Then I read this article and it jogged my memory about cool season and warm season grasses - that explains it! Cool season grasses emerge early in spring, grow rapidly, and fruit sooner. Warm season grasses, not surprisingly, emerge later and keep growing and fruiting into the fall.

The article even says "Don’t be alarmed and think they’ve died off during the winter. Many warm season ornamental grasses don’t get going until after the spring bulbs have faded." Whew! Because my warm season grasses aren't even thinking about waking up at this point!

My cool season grasses are Karl Foerster and Blue Fescue, and my warm season grasses are Hardy Pampas Grass and Northwind Switchgrass.

Feather Reed Grass 'Karl Foerster' Calamagrostis acutiflora - April 4, 2015

Blue Fescue - Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue' April 5, 2015 - I transplanted this from my shaded side yard and divided it. It's barely hanging on. It lasted all winter with really no chance to root in, so hopefully it grows quickly.

I love the look of Blue Fescue, it's so tempting to just go to Lowe's and buy another one that's already-amazing looking and fully-grown. I'm left with these brown stubs, and some seedlings that I'm waiting until no chance of frost to put outside. All this time waiting just to save $7...

Moving on to the warm season grasses, there's not really much to talk about - they're just dried husks at this point. I really would think they were dead if I hadn't read that article.

 Hardy Pampas Grass - Erianthus ravennae, April 5, 2015

 Panicum virgatum 'Northwind' Switch Grass - April 5, 2015

My First Dry Flower Arrangement: Karl Foerster, Annabelle Hydrangea, Hardy Pampas Grass

So this is my first attempt to create a dried flower arrangement using the 'fruits' of my tiny backyard. Our guest bathroom was missing something - it's a green and brown palette - and I thought a dried arrangement would be a good fit.

I started with just a few stalks of the Karl Foerster feather reed grass (I want to type Karl Forrester so bad but I know it's Foerster). I'm going to try to tag each of my plants as keywords like this: [Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster']. The feather reed grass by itself was pretty weak, so I added a couple dried hydrangea [Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'].

Dried Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass

Dried Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'

I bought a Hardy Pampas Grass [Erianthus ravennae] on sale at Lowe's this Fall, and it only had 2 fruiting stalks of feathery seeds. I was debating leaving them up all winter, but I decided to chop them down and use them in the arrangement as well. These things are BIG so it added some much needed vertical height.

Dried Erianthus ravennae 'Hardy Pampas Grass'

Any tips? I think next time I will try a larger vase, and more hydrangea to create different vertical layers instead of just a few things at the base and two giant vertical stalks. Not bad for a first try!