Ribbon Grass ( Phalaris arundinacea)
I got it thru an innocent plant swap with a friend, it was sweet and a welcome light in a dark place for a short time. Friend said, oh, I love it and it doesn't spread in my garden......it just mounds.
Please don't introduce this to any spot that you imagine under your control. It loves rocks, and makes Bermuda Grass look tame.
Should have a haz mat warning on the sticky pot.... It bites
Sue Western Maine .
I got three one-gallon pots of this about 7 years ago. Right now I have a patch that is about 24 inches in diameter. It has been quite underwhelming for me. They were planted in partial shade in rich, well drained soil. It has been far from invasive in my zone 6 garden.
underwhelming
If it had behaved that way for me I would have been a very happy gardner, and not spent hours yesterday with a spading fork and large rocks for leverage in prying up the root masses. In my friend's open garden, it was just as you describe. I'm not giving it a second chance
Sue
Its strange how thing work. I have black-eyed Susan that self seeds like crazy where I don't want it. When I move it where I want it, it does nothing. Someone gave me some evening primrose - the invasive futacosa variety. It took over a bed and I am still trying to totally rid myself of it. I moved the plants to a spot that was in danger of eroding - NOTHING! I started some lamb's ear from seed. It grows like wild in some beds and a few feet away - NOTHING!
I can attest to this one. I have tried and tried to successfully grow Gaillardia. Friend's always reseeds at her house and she'd let me dig up as many as I wanted. They bloomed, and never returned. I have had a pot of Quaking oat grass for a few years now and just discovered that if you don't give the grass a haircut, you'll have it anywhere the seeds are dropped by the birds. I spent the larger part of two hours yesterday just pulling out seedlings of oat grass in pots and the new invasive but well loved "Swamp sunflower" . I love it too, with it's huge steroid sized coreopsis like flowers and thousands of them. but those thousands of flowers make little cosmos like seeds that apparently are ALL viable. I'm seeing marijuana like seedlings everywhere...........even in some places far from where the patch was allowed to grow last year.
I also apparently have an abundance of perennial begonia, but I adore those and will relocate some to another spot to take over. I can't have enough of them.........and I too have a pot of ribbon grass that is doing well. I'm almost afraid to plant it in the ground because the same stuff I brought back from Denver a few years ago never established more than a weak clump, but this pot is thriving. I'll take the pot where I want it to light up an area. I "might" take a plug and attempt to plant it and see if it likes clay soil..........
(I also have a large amount of Dames Rockets this year) but with the cool evenings, they apparently smell divine! so I'll just rip up the bulk of them before they split their seed pods. This eerie purplish pink color they have is amazing........I have lost a whole pot of brodaeae bulbs to these ladies that seeded in the pot.........their toes crowded out the brodaeae bulbs and that's all that's thriving.
madgardener
HaHaHa, I'd lay odds I could grow those in my garden and never have to worry about them spreading, even if I wanted them to spread! Why? The High Mojave Desert has it's own ways of controling any plant. Only plant to make itself at home and even it can be controled if killed while just a seedling is the Tumbleweed which came from outside the NA land mass.
Send me any seeds you want.
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