I have a new passion, ornamental grasses, for the landscape and for the pond. This month I will tell you about all the wonderful addition to our ponds. When I started to garden in water all the beautiful flowering plants suckered me in, and I still love them all but what a wonderful and sophisticated addition the grasses make. Especially now, winter is close and the season of the flowering plants is gone and we will be left with a lot of empty pots till next season. Out comes the grass like plants. I have already started to exchange plants in my main pond that it will look just as lush as it was in summer. Of course I realize that only a grower can do that, but how about adding some of these plants for winter interest and summer delight.

There are several wonderful grass like plants that do well in the water garden, actually there are that many it will take me two articles to mention all of them. One of the largest groups is Carex - sedge. These are grass like, clump-forming plants found all over the world. They all like damp to wet conditions that makes them good water garden plants. C. comans - New Zealand hair sedge, the clumps grow to 1-1 1/2 feet high. There are several varieties that can be grown in water. "Bronze" has coppery brown drooping leaves, that color looks very attractive with green leaved Iris. "Frosty Curls", the greenish brown leaves tend to curl on the ends, clumps to 1 foot tall. C. elata "Aurea" (Bowles Golden), grows to 2 1/2 feet high and has that modern bright yellow green color. C. spissa - San Diego sedge, native to wet areas in California has upright blue green leaves to 5 feet tall (never grew that tall in my pond, good). Golden brown grass type flowers appear in spring. The blue leaves look very nice in my pond. C. pendula - Drooping sedge, the leaves form a grassy fountain and it can grow quite tall. There is one hybrid called Fiber Optic plant that only grows to 1 foot and looks just like these lamps with little balls on the end of the thin leaves. This plant is very good for tub gardens or half whisky barrels where the foliage will hand over the edges. The next family is Juncos - Rush. The most showy is J. "spiralis" or corkscrew rush. The leaves of this plant grow in spirals to 2 - 4 feet tall. There are some attractive plants called rushes that do not belong to the genus juncos. Butomus umbrellatus - flowering rush is a very pretty plant with umbrella like pink flowers. I am growing one for 2 years now and it has never flowered for me, I think this plant is not for our warm summers. Eloecharis - Spike rush, an ideal pant for a small pond or barrel, also called miniature horsetail, has quill shaped upright leaves with little seed heads growing on the tips. E. Tuberose - Chinese water chestnut grows up to 3 feet tall, the corms are used in oriental cuisine. Equisitum hyemale - Horsetail has linear bamboo like upright stems that come straight up from the rootstock. One of the oldest plants dating back to the age of the dinosaur. Also called scouring rush because the Indians and the settlers used this plant for cleaning their post and pans. A charming little plant is Dichomena colorata - Star grass; it is evergreen sedge with star shaped white flowers growing to 1 foot. All of these plants make wonderful additions to a pond and most of them have winter interest.