Japanese Forest Grass / Hakonechloa macra

Hakonechloa macra aureola
From Avant Gardens in Spring 2018,
     (and replaced one with a plant from Bluestone Perennials in fall 2018.)

Photos

Expectations:

These are soooo slow to get going. It took six years in my former garden, and will take longer in this climate and competing with aspen roots.

Keep this moist -- a challenge under the aspens, but water well and consistently.

My idea is to have the garden under the aspens be mostly these three big mounding forest grasses, with just a few other things nearby.

In my former garden they were crowded from behind, and only spilled forward.

In this shady under-the-trees curve I want to give them enough room to become big and rounded. 

Experiences:

I put three in an arc in the potting bench curve garden, along with fuzzy blue green lambsear and I love the combination.

May 2019

Because they are so slow to get going, I ended up planting lots of stuff around these forest grasses and need to edit it all down.

The first year, in 2018, they were little and sparse looking and I lost one that had to be replaced. 

The center one gets all day shade and is the fullest and after several years has spread out nicely.

But the flanking two struggled, never putting on any size. 

They were well watered, I added compost, but in 2023 I finally had to take those two out. I potted them up and they looked much better all season.

They are in shallow plastic pots, and I placed the containers back in the garden where they had been in the ground. I'd like to re-plant them again, but add a lot of compost and soil, maybe forming a mound in the two locations, and see if I can get them to grow inground again.

2023