Beauty of Fall
Fall puts on its finery when the ornamental grasses appear — their plumes shimmering and shining in the autumn sun.
Ornamental grasses are also practical in the home garden because birds and small mammals like their small seeds while deer dislike anything about them, according to Helen Hamilton, author of “Wildflowers and Grasses of Virginia's Coastal Plain.”
“Mixed with perennial flowers and shrubs, their erect stems and leaves provide a nice contrast to the garden landscape,” she says.
Here are some native ornamental grasses to consider for the home garden, courtesy of Hamilton:
• Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). An excellent forage grass, little bluestem was once the most abundant species in the American prairie. Blue-green only when the shoots first come up in the early summer, the leaves and flowering stalks become a rich mixture of tan, brown, and wine-red through the fall and winter. The grass grows five feet tall, with wiry flowering branches intermingled with leaves. It's native to almost every U.S. state.
• Purpletop (Tridens flavus). Purpletop is noticeable in late summer for its loose, open, purple flower clusters in a weeping form. The slender perennial grows 4 feet tall. The large purple seeds are widely spaced on thin panicle-branches. Birds eat the plants nutritious, fatty seeds, and this robust grass provides significant cover for wildlife. It's native to 37 states, including California.
• Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Once one of the dominant species of the tall-grass prairie, switchgrass now grows on dunes, shores, along the edges of ponds and marshes. As larval host for the tawny-edged skipper, Delaware skipper, northern broken-dash and little glassywing, it has leaves and stems that should remain uncut over the winter. It's native to all 48 lower U.S. states, except California, Washington and Oregon.
• Rice cutgrass (Leersia oryzoides), giant cutgrass (Zizaniopsis miliacea). These two grasses are hosts for the caterpillars of skippers that live in coastal counties. The native cool-season grass grows and flowers late in the summer, producing seeds that are important food for waterfowl, small mammals and shorebirds. Rice cutgrass is appropriately named because the sharp, abrasive leaves can cut skin and cling to clothing. Rice cutgrass is native to all 48 lower U.S. states; giant cutgrass grows in more than a dozen southeastern U.S. states.
Now let's meet some skippers. Gardeners and their cameras are drawn to butterflies, especially eye-catching swallowtails, pearl crescents, buckeyes and monarchs
“These 'flowers of the air' usually have large wings, colorful scales and feed on nectar for long periods, allowing easy photographing,” Hamilton said.
Here are some skippers you may see in your yard, said Hamilton:
• Fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus). With bright orange and black markings, fiery skippers are more easily recognizable than other grass skippers. While they feed on the nectar from the flowers of the native swamp milkweed, asters, sneezeweed and ironweed, the males wait for receptive females in short grasses such as Bermuda grass and crabgrass.
• Least skipper (Ancyloxypha numitor). Also with orange and black markings, the females favor native marsh grasses such as marsh millet and rice cutgrass as food for their caterpillars.
• Northern broken-dash (Wallengrenia egeremet). These skippers fly slowly and are mostly dark brown in color. There is only one brood June-August; caterpillars develop in the leaves of the panic grasses and deer tongue grasses.
• Zabulon skipper. Brown-purple butterflies with yellow markings, zabulons make two broods May-September. After caterpillars emerge from their shelters of silk-tied leaves, they feed on lovegrass, wildrye, purpletop, bentgrass, orchardgrass, bluegrass and wheatgrass.
