Village Gardeners
March's Ornamental Grasses
MR RICHARD FORD, an R.H.S. medal winner and judge, from Park Green Nurseries in
Suffolk, gave us a very high-tech presentation on his great interest-Ornamental
grasses.
There are 9000 species of grasses which amount to one fifth of the world's vegetation. They grow more or less anywhere and our speaker said he specially liked them because of their perfect "fit" and their graceful movement. They are lovely by water and in containers (don't mix them with other plants)
Grasses are primitive plants and rely on wind to pollinate them. Not good for Hay Fever sufferers! There are various families-Sedges, Rushes, Cat's Tails and Bamboo. There are 70 varieties of Pampas grass which thrives in lots of organic material. Miscanthus-Zebra grass is especially good in gardens and has a variety of colours over the season.
Mr Parker recommended Pensthorpe, Hyde Hall and Bressingham gardens in Suffolk as all having very impressive displays of grasses.
He had lots of plants for sale-so if you look carefully you should see a sudden increase of this species growing in the village this summer!
Our next meeting is on Tuesday 15th May, when the topic for the evening is Roses. Every one welcome.
N.B. PLEASE REMEMBER OUR TRIP TO GREAT DIXTER ON THE 30TH JUNE.