... "amazing ornamental grasses that keep on keeping on all summer long. Some are big and add drama, others are soft and bring romance to the garden."
Florida Native Grasses to Use as Ornamentals in your Landscape
Six Powerhouse Native Grasses
Landscaping with grasses is extremely popular throughout our country and throughout the world. Many grasses reseed prolifically and are not appropriate for our small yards in The Villages. Your neighbors will not thank you if your grasses spread to other yards.
Inspiration from Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Not all of these grasses are available to Floridians, but the pictures and text will give you landscape ideas. Grasses are also pollinators and provide homes for insects. A big plus is they have a good root system that helps suppress weeds.
Florida Native Grasses
Presentation for Passionflower FNPS (scroll through the beginning until Nancy starts to talk.)
YouTube with Nancy Bisset, Restoration ecologist, botanist, and horticulturist (TVFNPS speaker, January 2020). co-owner, The Natives Inc.
Forgotten Landscapes: Bringing Back the Rich Grasslands of the Southeast
Schizachyrium scoparium, Little Bluestem
Florida Plant Atlas - only native found in the westernmost county in the panhandle
Natives for Your Neighborhood - south Florida
The Institute for Regional Conservation (IRC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection, restoration and long-term management of biodiversity on a regional basis, and to the prevention of regional extinctions of rare plants, animals, and ecosystems.
FANN - does not have a category for grasses. You can search for individual plants by name.
Identifying Grasses
Identifying grass is a challenge. Yes, there are flowers, but they often lack distinction. This first link is to an Illinois site that gives an excellent description of the parts of a grass; however, most of the specific plants discussed are not Florida natives.
- Basics of Grass Identification https://youtu.be/4Kktjj2lCjI (A series on different grasses)
or - Identifying Grasses https://youtu.be/1OkCGKVn_ws
Many of these grasses are also available in Central Florida. Use the Atlas of Florida Plants to search for a Latin plant name and view pictures and a map of growing locations.