The most beautiful ornamental grass is pink muhly grass. It produces massive clouds of pink plumes every fall that glow in the sunlight. No other grass delivers this kind of visual punch with so little effort. A single mature clump turns heads, and a row of them will stop your neighbors mid-walk.
I first saw pink muhly grass in masses at a botanical garden in Georgia during mid-October. Hundreds of plants lined both sides of a walking path. The late afternoon sun hit those plumes at the perfect angle and the whole scene glowed pink and gold. I stood there for a solid ten minutes watching the light shift across the plumes. That visit made me rip out a bed of tired shrubs back home and fill the space with pink muhly instead.
Four things make a grass stand out as a beauty. Foliage color sets the tone all season with shades of blue, gold, deep green, and striped mixes. Plume shape and color add drama at bloom time. Seasonal color changes give you shifting interest from spring through winter. Movement in the breeze brings a living quality that static plants can't match. The prettiest ornamental grasses score high in at least two of these areas at once.
A few species deserve a spot on any top beauty list. Japanese forest grass Aureola sends out waves of golden-green leaves that light up shady spots. Little bluestem starts summer as a soft blue-green column. Then it shifts to blazing copper-red in fall with fluffy white seed puffs. Prairie dropseed makes seed heads so fine they look like mist. They even smell like buttered popcorn on warm days.
The key to maximum beauty is planning for all four seasons. A garden with only summer grasses looks bare for most of the year. Mix in one grass per season and you'll have something worth seeing every single day. The ornamental grass visual appeal shifts as months pass, giving you a yard that never looks the same way twice.
In my experience, the grasses that look best are the ones you place where you can see them at sunset. Backlit grasses glow in ways that no other plant can match. I moved my little bluestem from a north-facing bed to a west-facing border and the fall color impact tripled just from that one change. The copper-red foliage caught the low autumn sun every evening. My boring side yard became the best view from my kitchen window.
Start with three to five pink muhly clumps spaced 3 feet apart in full sun. By their second fall, you'll own a pink cloud that stops every person on their evening walk. Then add one grass for each remaining season. Japanese forest grass covers spring. Feather reed grass handles summer. Little bluestem takes fall. Big bluestem gives you winter structure. That lineup makes your garden the most beautiful one on the block all year long.
Read the full article: 10 Best Ornamental Grasses for Your Garden
