What is that intimidatingly long line of symbols and numbers by your user name? What is it there for? Just wondering.

The grasses look good and it seems you are getting the technical science part down. I am wondering about what kind garden design theme you are after? Looks like a demonstration garden but maybe you aren't finished working the area or maybe you are intentionally planting a specimen garden? If not, do you have something planned to transition it into the lawn area?

Have you ever checked out John Greenlee's books and the way he designs interesting and natural looking gardens/landscapes using grasses? I am interested in how he integrates it all because gardening is more of an art than science to me, but we each have different approaches.

Don't be intimidated. %2C is how the forum software interprets a comma. In my profile, it reads 7b, GSB, LI, NY. That's zone 7b, on the Great South Bay, Long Island, New York.

The bed in the photo is not my garden. It's a nursery bed for mature grasses. I use it to display grasses which I sell to customers, and to grow them on for division or sale. For each of those grasses, I have at least a half-dozen 5-gallon or larger potted specimens.

I wasn't really intimidated, its more like I figured you must be the Dechampsia of US climate zones with such a 'robustum' number and I was also having a case of hystrix over the fact that you were posting about soil amendment and had formerly transplanted me off to the Soil Forum last Feb for a post on soil amendment, like some kind of Imperata cylindrica. Its not bringing out my best personality features and I got a bit snippy. I've been a serious gardener for 40 years and I figure you probably have even more experience but fact is, I want to talk about grasses and I can see you know grasses.

So you are coastal? I am smack in the center of the Great Plains. Tornado Alley and lots of prairie. My 6 Little Karley Rose's I got from SRG last fall are up and blooming. Parts of Oklahoma have hit 103 already. Odd to think we are in the same zone and yet probably the only climate feature we have in common is the low temps in winter, I would imagine. Are you selling locally?

Your thread was about amending clay soil for general gardening. My thread has nothing to do with soil. There is no soil in any of my potting mixes, and it's specifically testing the growth of grasses in different potting mixes.

I'm 63 years old, and have been gardening since my Grandmother let me help in her vegetable garden when I was 5.

I'm as coastal as you can get. There's a saltwater canal in my backyard which runs 200 yards to the Great South Bay. If I dig down 3' in my backyard, I hit the water table.

I don't know what your winters are like, but the proximity of water keeps mine milder than just a short distance inland. The lowest temperature I've recorded in the past 4 years is 12ðF. My Springs are cooler, Summers cooler and Falls warmer, all due to the bay.

Yes..I sell grasses locally. Some to plain old gardeners and some to landscapers. I also do some installations when I have time.

pick pick pick. My thread was an answer to the guy who was planting grasses in clay which happens to be my own particular GRASS area problem I am working on where I took out a 100 x 5 foot privet hedge. I had amended my other soil in this way and planned to do the same in this new area. I couldn't figure out how to follow up my answer on the original post so I committed forum heresy by following it a few minutes later with a new post, being frustrated because I had spent all that time typing and it wouldn't fly and had to retype the dang thing only to get rewarded with a smack.

Fact is, you have transplanted me three times so I was feeling a bit in shock, nipped along the edges, but I am willing to let bygones be bygones.

You have me beat by 3 years. Our summers get very hot and dry, probably more of a factor in choosing what to grow than winter, which is relatively mild. Every once in a while an arctic front will dip this low. We get that warm Gulf Stream keeping us mild in winter typically.

I am a professional artist and a landscape is like a big painting. I love gardening, always have.

I just transplanted a Karley Rose too. Mine wasn't quite that big but it was much bigger than I expected after just being planted last year. I divided it up and stuck it in pots. Going to be too big for my garden but I can always shove a pot somewhere, I'll give the others away. I put Penn Stripe in the empty spot in the border.

Karley has a lot more on top than on the bottom.

You guys are scaring me. I bought six of these and have them in two separate groups with the plants spaced about two and a half to three feet apart. Am I going to end up with two nightmare sized clumps of solid Karley Rose? Maybe I should pare it down and give four of them away?

You'll almost certainly have two giant clumps (in diameter), if mine is any indication. My 20" crown had a 5' upper spread last year, and it was just 5 years in the ground.

I wouldn't pare them down yet, though. With your spacing, you should have at least a couple of years of well-defined individual plants.

A common practice with 'Karley' is to root-prune the plant to maintain a certain size. That's how I got mine. A trader here on GW had root-pruned hers, and traded me a bare-root cutting, just large enough for a 400 pot.

This also may be a good Pennisetum for a container. The pot will constrain its size, and in a tall urn-type container, it should make a beautiful display.

If you decide to dig some of yours, let me know. I'd buy them early next spring, and pay the Priority Mail Flat Rate shipping.

The move doesn't seem to have bothered the plant, so far. This is one week later:

It looks like I'll need to expand the bed a bit, toward the camera, to keep the grass from overhanging the lawn (I use the word loosely.) too much.

WOW! That was fast! And yes, I see what you mean by the "lawn".

Since I am trying to block off a view somewhat, a large mass won't be a bad thing in one of the groups. The other group needs the definition so I think the root trimming advice sounds good there. (thank-you) I am trying to mass together large grass forms to fill a wide long area and have mixed groupings of 3 types of narrow leaf Miscanthus, three types of Pannicum, Sporoblus alkalai, 4 of the Los Lunas variety of Sporobolus Wrightii and Indian Grass and groups of Little bluestem. Trying to go BIG AND BOLD.

I keep editing the grasses to make well defined masses, its difficult to visualize because everything is still small but I did use a yardstick to space according to the plant tags. I took out all the Eragrostis spectabilis (had a lot of it) and replaced it all with Little bluestem. Didn't even wait to see the blooms. I thought it was ugly.

I am reassessing the E. Ellioti.

I have a group of Stipa tenuissima among lophantha agaves and put the transplanted all the Eragrostis Elliotii together behind it with a flagstone path between the two grasses with M. Gracillimus in the background. Actually, it looks pretty good with the yellow of the stipa in front of the seedheads of the metallic blue E. Ellioti. I may just keep that arrangement after all. It was hideous and weedy looking in the former spot.

"And yes, I see what you mean by the "lawn"."

When I moved here, there was over 16,000 square feet of lawn grass. I've slowly whittled it down to less than 3,000. Eventually, there will only be enough for the dog to pee, and some paths between beds, like this:

I love love love it! What is the black contrasting gravel type cover? We brought in a lot of big rocks too, but its completely different in look, a dry-mesic prairie/desert scheme. I love the way you used the gravel, kind of crazy and whimsical like a modern painting. I am getting ready for another ton.

I need to learn how to post pictures on here. I am experimenting with a few native grasses grown from seed collected in New Mexico and need help in IDing them when they bloom. I have no idea what they are and am testing them for ornamental quality, seed heads and form. One had seeds that each looked like it was covered in red fox fur, the grass has fine blades. What is it?? I have no idea. Only three seeds germinated so I don't think its invasive. I call them the Mystery Grasses.

I'd like to see some grass groupings you've done, not just the individual specimen stuff, some scapes if you have pictures.

The stuff in the beds is dark wet mulch, same stuff as in the grass nursery bed above. The pic was shot just after the beds were cut and mulched...almost 3 years ago. I'm still in the process of filling the beds with plants..and moving them around..and replacing them. It was my first attempt at keyhole beds. I can reach everything easily, from the paths.

Grass groupings? One of my favorites is just visible in the upper right of that last photo. Here's a better shot of it, in bloom:

Here's the frontal view:

This isn't really a grouping, but two specimens in front of a Locust tree in front of my boathouse:

Here's a nice shot of my biggest grass, a 1000+ square foot grove of Yellow Groove Bamboo:

It's the huge mass of green (evergreen) in the upper left, behind the Morning Glory tower. Just to the right of the tower are some Panicum 'Northwind' and further right are Panicum 'Dewey Blue.'

I love the "mauve-y" violet heather look of the Pennisetum with the fescue and what looks like stipa. Really REALLY nice combination. Is that a Miscanthus poking up behind in photo #1 showing another area? The two different pictures of this area are showing me that its not giving a sense of the depth of the garden behind and I am assuming its quite a large dramatic planting, counting the grasses. I never can figure out how to overcome that in pictures. Unless maybe you go up on the roof.

I got 6 of the P. Northwind. I've never tried it before and they are still babies from SRG last fall. I grew one five years ago sold under the name of 'Prairie Sky' and could kick myself for digging it up when I did the garden makeover. I like the way you did the native flowers in back of yours and am wondering what is the blue grass coming up in back of the echinacea?

Does the Northwind get the olive green color I am expecting and hoping for later in the season?

To post pictures, do I need to go up to the Photo Galleries and post them there? I posted a lot of photos at Dave's Garden under the name of Shindagger but have never tried doing it here. I am a real dummy when it comes to computers so if its not apparent and easy, I am too lazy but I'd like to figure this out finally.

The blue grass in Panicum amarum 'Dewey Blue.'

I use PhotoBucket for posting pics.

Yes...that is an M.s. 'Gracillimus' surrounded by peach colored Irises.

It is difficult to get the scale of a large planting when you're shooting from the same level. That run of 'Moudry' is just south of the keyhole beds, and is, in turn, fronted by another keyhole bed and a semi-circle, shown here:

Here are those beds during development:

This shot shows the same area from the north side:

P.v. 'Northwind' is definitely olive in color, and looks moreso late in the season, as the foliage takes on a dusty surface look. It's a great grass...the most erect I've grown yet, and the flowers stay right in the top of the foliage rather than towering over it like so many other grasses.

Donn,

That wide angle shot looks completely different. It all looked close together in the other one. Its a BIG area. Nice.

I am going to "swipe" your pictures and send them to my sister. She has a very large corner lot in Kansas that she is wanting to convert into ornamental and prairie grasses, getting rid of the standard lawn, except for some areas and paths of fescue. Right now she is fighting a solid mass of crabgrass that used to be a bermuda lawn. Obviously not the plain jane common bermuda I had which nothing but digging or poison will kill out completely, rather some kind of finicky water sucking, high maintenance hybrid that she neglect for two years.

She is a bit overwhelmed at present and I think if she sees these large grasses and massed areas you defined, her area might not seem so large and formidable. I detected a bit of of despair yesterday on the phone and she said she feared she was creating a mess. She'll do fine, she's been a gardener for years and actually she's obsessed with it right now.

I checked out photobucket. Looks simple enough.

I am trying to figure out how to download a photo so here goes.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://i1109.photobucket.com/album

A little over a month since the transplant:

She's about 2'6" tall now, and has just begun to bloom.

I figured out how to post pictures. Here are some of my yard, as you can see its a desert type, native plants, informal landscape. Most of the grasses are being planted by the ugly fence and neighbors mess of a yard. I am adding grasses for softness and form. The photos were shot at the same time you moved the Karley Rose, mid May.

href="http://s1109.photobucket.com/albums/h432/cactusgarden1/?action=view&current=DSC_0053.jpg"; target="_blank">{{gwi:857982}}
{{gwi:857985}}
{{gwi:857988}}

{{gwi:857996}}

Very arid looking! What are those things that look like antlers?

They are chollas. O. imbricata, O. spinosior and one called "Snow Leopard". The imbricata and a couple other types are native to Oklahoma, the others are from Texas and Colorado.

Wow, you guys have some very neat landscapes! I'd love to see more of each.

Thank you OKgirl. I got tired of watering, threw in the towel and scraped it clean about 5 years ago after many summers in a row of drought. I did it about the time the garden gets that overgrown, tired look at the end of the season. Once I started, it just became easier and easier dig and toss until I had only one red barberry left up front (the one in the photo). Then I denuded the whole backyard too.

We don't miss mowing or trimming shrubs at all. This is the funnest landscape I have ever done and I get a lot of lookers driving by. It was mostly done from seeds, trading and native plants found in the wild. Now I'm adding ornamental native grasses.