Planting grasses in a pot

Grasses are decorative perennials in winter. They bring a touch of fantasy to a terrace or a balcony at a time when nature is dormant. Hubert Fontaine shows you all the steps to choose them and install them in a basin.

Choice of pot or basin

The basin must be resistant to frost, the earth fiber is a light material which fulfills this condition.

How to install grasses in a basin: step by step

• The basin is drilled at the bottom to evacuate the irrigation water.
• Place a felt over the drainage hole so that it never clogs.
• Pour a bed of clay balls at the bottom of the pot to drain the basin well in case of heavy rains. Grasses prefer to have dry roots in winter.
• Cover the drainage with felt to separate the substrate from the clay balls.
• Fill the basin with universal potting soil.
• Soak the pots to moisten the clods before planting.
• Remove the grasses, taking care to scratch the bun intertwined with the roots.
• The establishment of grasses depends on your tastes with all the same an elementary rule: the large ones at the bottom and the small ones around.

Choice of varieties

• Carex buchananii red rooster (Buchanan’s sedge) which sports a light, aerial foliage in the form of a copper-colored vase
• Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘karl Foerter’ has slender green foliage. This grass turns golden in winter.
• Sedge evergold with very bright variegated foliage. These long, drooping leaves follow the contours of the basin.
• Miscanthus sinensis ‘Kleine Silberspinne’ (Eulalie, Chinese Reed). It is surmounted in autumn by small plumes which sometimes remain hung until spring in the basin.
• Blue fescue is a steel gray ground cover grass. A spiky hair, it contrasts with other grasses – Angel hair or stipa. Its thin, very flexible leaves fly in the wind. This small, simmering grass is in perpetual motion in the Gautier Fescue basin, also known as bear hair fescue. Very dense, a little spiky, excellent ground cover finds its place at the edge of the basin.

Trick

• The pozzolana highlights the basin of grasses. This lightweight volcanic rock protects plants and provides water retention capacity.
• Water copiously the first time.

And after

• Simply water after a long period of frost.
• In spring, add a grass fertilizer or, failing that, a lawn or bamboo fertilizer.
• The pruning of the grasses intervenes when they start to set out again on the stump and not before.