Tall, feathery pinkish flowers appeared a couple of weeks ago on our Feather Reed Grasses. Early morning or late afternoon, this grass is stunning. The flowers glow in diffuse light and sway even in the slightest breeze.
Yes, grasses have flowers and are considered flowering plants. It’s just that since they’re wind pollinated they don’t need to mess with colors, fragrances or any of those extras. Just produce a lot of pollen and leave it to the wind to get the job done. This is also why many of them are brutal for people suffering from allergies.
So, what’s the deal? Well, try doing an image search for this: “Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’. You can also search for the ‘Stricta’ variety. Compare their images to ours. The typical image shows a straw colored, narrow spike instead of a pink, feathery wand. What’s happening? We have three varieties of this grass: ‘Karl Foerster’, ‘Stricta’ and ‘Overdam’. In our climate, the first two varieties are effectively identical. ‘Overdam’ has variegated leaves and is supposedly smaller than the other two. All our plants have identical flowers. Feathery. Pinkish. Not straw colored or tight.
Our current theory is that as the flowers age, they’ll transform themselves into tight, straw colored spikes and stay that way the rest of the year. Of course, we’ll post images for comparison if and when that happens.
The flowers get about five feet tall, rising over leaves that stay much lower, around eighteen inches above the ground. The plants get watered about once a week, maybe twice if the weather is exceptionally hot. The old flower spikes get cut down in spring to keep things looking tidy. Our plants are in full sun, but I’ve seen them growing where they’re shaded in the afternoon.