I agree - it becomes a narrow, vertical exclamation mark when it flowers, while it is a broad, soft clump of delicate, arching foliage before flowering. So it needs to placed carefully from the design point of view. I have it planted in the corner of the garden, in front of a tall fence covered with vines. The verticality of the flowers is hardly noticeable there - the grass is really a background plant, a screen - filling up the lower part of the fence, where the vines are not as dense as they are higher up. But if you plant a single specimen in the middle of a mixed border, be prepared the flowers will stand out very much - a tall, narrow column of beige color - quite early in the season.

Other than that, it is a very nice, long lived, trouble free grass. The leaf blades are soft and do not cut.

BTW, I was wondering - can I safely get rid of the flowers when they appear and keep the foliage only? I have just planted two calamgrostis Overdam in the middle of my mixed variegated border :-)

Thank you! I'm definetly getting some of this grass. Now I just need to find some locally. Hoping Lowes is carrying it right now.

Jen

I second all of the above. While it is not suitable for all purposes from a design perspective (depending on the look you are trying to achieve), it is a fantastic grass.

I planted this variety almost by accident. I inquired of my nursery what grass it was growing in it's front entrance bed as I really liked it and it was KF. They were out of it for the season and when I later went to Home Depot, I popped my head into the garden center. There, off in the distance, I saw this scrawny little thing, only a few blades of grass about 18" high, labled as KF. My thought was that there is no way this is the same KF I saw at the nursery but I decided to buy the pathetic-looking thing anyway. I planted it and by the beginning of fall, it was georgous--probably 3x the height (if not more) than when I planted it a short time before with perfect plumes extending upward. In addition to looking great throughout the season, if you wait until the spring to cut it back, it looks great in the winter as well.

I started to post a new thread, but since there was already one going about Karl Foerster, I thought I would just jump in. Hope that is okay tjsangel.

On the southwest corner of my house there is a Rose of Sharon 'Freedom. Just around the corner, on the west side is a 'Red Wing' viburnum. My problem area is between these two shrubs. I tried an oakleaf hydrangea, which didn't survive the winter, replaced it with a kerria japonica 'Golden Guinea' which doesn't seem to be able to tolerate the strong winds in that location. So would 'Karl Foerster' do well with afternoon only sun, and lots of wind? This area receives full sun from about 2 pm until sundown.

I have been searching for the right shrub to put in there, then it hit me that maybe a shrub isn't what's needed there at all. It is raining right now, but maybe I can get a picture posted later today.

Okay, here is a picture of the trouble spot.

You may be wondering where the shrubs are, and they are actually in the picture, but they are only about 12" tall right now (click on pics below). The viburnum should get 8' - 10' tall, and the ROS will be 6' - 8' tall.

You can see that all of the mulch has completely blown away in this area, so you can tell it gets a LOT of wind.

High...I think Karl would look great there, and I've seen nothing to indicate it can't take lots of wind. Mine are only pups (1-quart purchases last summer), but they survived the winter in buried pots, in a very windy spot.

A shrub that gets 8-10 feet tall will get that wide as well. Your viburnum should be planted AT LEAST 6 feet from the the wall of your house to give it enough room so it isn't mashed against the wall of your house--bad for the plant and bad for the house.