Flame Grass
Miscanthus sinensis ‘Purpurascens’
H: 4 feet W: 3 feet
Zone 3
Sun to part shade
Flame Grass is so called because of its striking orange-red autumn color. With year-round appeal, it is definitely one of the more useful and popular of the taller grasses in use today. It brings such a striking look to your landscape. You’ll love it all year-long. The bright spring green blades emerge and grow quickly. They’ll start to gain a reddish tinge which gradually develops into deeper red hues as summer progresses. In late summer, red-tinged stalks start to appear above the tops of the grass. They’ll form tassel-like flowers that turn a creamy white as they mature. Then, in autumn, the foliage turns brilliant orange-red. That’s when you’ll know why it was named after a blazing fire. The intense fall color contrasts so beautifully with the striking, creamy-white seed plumes. In winter, the foliage settles into a lovely burgundy color with age. This pretty purple continues to offset the white plumes. They’ll persist well into winter, providing nice winter interest. You can also cut the plumes and dry them for gorgeous, natural winter flower arrangements indoors.
Throughout this site, the following are used as guidelines for watering established plants:
These truly xeric plants can live with our 12 inches of natural annual precipitation and only need a winter watering during a multi-year drought, but they will thrive with a monthly watering. Overwatering will kill some of these. These plants are adapted to intermittent deep
watering with soil drying to a depth of a few inches between waterings. Watering frequency may be every couple of weeks during the active growing season and maybe only one winter watering for optimal care. These plants need regular watering somewhat like a bluegrass lawn so that
they never dry to depth in the root system during the active growing season, and need occasional winter watering to prevent root dessication and resultant plant
death. About sizes of our plants:
Sizes indicated with a # are roughly the equivalent in gallonage; so a #2 is about a 2 gallon pot size; b&b stands for balled and burlapped.