As the calendar swiftly moves from July to August, so does my attention move from the faded blooms on many of the perennials to the building excitement with most of the ornamental grasses. This is the time of year when the “warm season” grasses typically hit their stride and start to leave a serious impression. I am about OG’s all the time come August 1st and that will carry me through until December, weather permitting.

I shared the state of some of my ornamental grasses with you last week and to carry that exercise out further, here are some additional grasses as they look out in my garden as of today:

Miscanthus purpurascens (Flame Grass) is showing the first signs of that tremendous orange foliage color which is a sight to behold in a few more weeks:

While it still has yet to reach even 3 feet in height since I planted it three years ago, Miscanthus ‘Super Stripe’ still has that fantastic variegated foliage that contrasts so well with so many other shrubs/perennials. Now if it could also bloom with some sort of consistency, we may be on to something here:

What is there to say about Panicum (Switch Grass) ‘Northwind’? It has to be #1 or #2 on my ornamental grass list. The foliage always remains upright and tight, the foliage color of green/blue allows it to stand out from the other grasses and it holds up all winter without falling over. Whew … Is it hot in here or is it just this Switch Grass:

Let me preface my comments on the following OG with this; Northern Sea Oats reseeds like mad and can become a nuisance real quickly. Be very wary before adding these.

Having said that, they are pretty sweet looking im bloom with thier interesting “oats” and I have all of mine in one location where I let them seed to their heart’s content and it doesn’t impact any other plants:

That is it for today but I’m pretty sure I’ll have a third installment in the not so distant future. My ornamental grass collection is beyond what I even thought it was but during this time of year, it couldn’t be more exciting.