New Grassland Garden At The Huntington

The area in front of the Brody Botanical Center Conservatory was previously a lawn and a few Cycads.  Zzzzzzzzzz.  It was recently redone with various bunch grasses,  Hemerocallis, Abelia, Gaura lindheimeri (now Oenothera lindheimeri) and Buddleia, creating a spectacular effect.  
In May of 2016, they were in the process of redoing the area:

In April of 2017, it was beginning to grow:
Also April 2017.  Grasses grows fast!
Now in October, everything is in bloom:

 The Cycads are still there, too.
I'm curious how maintainable this will be, and if there will be downtime at some point in the year.  How will it look with all the grasses cut back? 




 In our climate we won't have the glorious effect of frost-coated grass on an early winter morning, but it will be far more interesting than a tired turf grass lawn. 





 Well done!

Comments

  1. Might there be bulbs and early-season annuals for the period when the grasses are newly cut-back stubs? Sure looks good right now.

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    1. We'll see what happens. I have no idea, though the Huntington doesn't do much bedding out of annuals--a bit in the Shakespeare garden and not much else.

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    2. No, it's not the kind of garden where bedding out would seem suitable. Maybe there are early-season annuals that would seed around in a natural way, especially if planted out in a natural-esque way the first season.

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  2. Oh, look! They've got your dark crape myrtle. (Dynamite? Firecracker? something explosive)

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    1. Yes they do! They have good taste. ;^) It's another red of the dark-leafed line, a more pure crimson, 'Ebony Flame' or 'Ebony Fire', perhaps. Mine ('Ebony Embers') is a slightly darker red and blooms a little later.

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  3. I'm impressed by how good the Gaura/Oenothera (if these reclassifications continue at their current pace, I may adopt common names for everything) looks with the pink Muhly grass. The grass and the dark-leafed crape myrtles also make a great combination.

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    1. The Gaura--uh, Oenothera was the white-flowered version, and it sparkled. All the plants are new so no ratty bases to look at. On an early Autumn morning it was wonderful to experience, a prairie kind of experience, that we don't much get here.

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    2. Kris, the white Gaura in your garden has that same sparkling effect among low grasses; I linger over the images in your 'September favorites' post.

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  4. Nicely done and nicely photographed!

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    1. Thanks! A good way to spend a beautiful morning. :)

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  5. We have a large installation of mixed gaura and pennisetum orientale in front of a Davis condo complex that looked marvelous it's first year, but the second year is finding the gaura dying out and the grass looking a bit dried out. They did no cutting back over the winter, and it looked ok then. I think they've cut back on the water a bit too much and that's why it is not as pretty this year.

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    1. The Huntington had a lot of Miscanthus and Muhly. I think they'll replant whole sections of whatever doesn't look good. Gaura looked ratty in my garden pretty quickly but came back afresh after a hard prune. I'll be interested to see how that section of the Huntington does over the next couple of years.

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  6. Love that shot of the grasses with the dark Lagerstroemia. What a beautiful improvement they have wrought on that whole area.

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