Hakonechloa macra
27th September 2013
When I was a teenager I had a wild fling in the hay, or at least among the grasses and grew everything
I could lay my hands on. It is a process that I still follow when I look at a group and want to know
which are the good ones. There is no substitute for personal experience.
At the time I came to the conclusion that there were a few good species and a lot of cattle feed
among the plants grown. The cattle feed had rather taken over the garden and at the same time the popular press
started to ooze witless drivel about the wonders of grasses so I turned my back on them.
I was fed up with illustrations of grasses shining in the low autumn light and close-ups of seed heads. No mention
of the dull colour of dead grasses when the sun is inconveniently refusing to shine on them. No mention
of the ugly tangle of crooked stems after a storm, or the mess of hay that scatters through the garden in winter.
Magazines write all about the lovely glowing heads of grasses and the susurrating movement and don't even have the decency to look
embarrassed when you mention Pampas and Couch grass.
So what is there to say. I have had a tantrum. A thirty year tantrum. To be fair, I have always acknowledged
the wonder of Miscanthus and noted (rather vaguely) that there were some other good ones, but I have been happy not to plant any.
All of which brings us to Hakonechloa. The variegated ones have qualities that I admire, they are bold and robust
and they form lovely rounded clumps and there is also a green one. It was going to take something rather special
to change my mind.
I had an opinion I was happy with, all was right with the world, and then the RHS went and built a new greenhouse at Wisley.
These are the things that change the world. In front of the greenhouse they needed a layout and a planting plan suitable to the
wonder of the building. They have tried several things without quite hitting the right note, but in the process they tried
a blanket planting of green Hakonechloa which shone and rustled and swayed about like an ecstatic football crowd
. It was the most wonderful thing (gone now of course, nothing simple is ever valued).
Fast forward to September which found me trying to take a picture that captured the way the green leafy stems
whisked around in the breeze. I failed, but here it is.
11th July 2014