Beleagered by the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. The word grass evokes scenes of manicured lawns and tall prairies stretching unbroken for miles across the great plains. Yet, neither of these images resembles the art of ornamental grass gardening for the plants that have recently come into fashion come from distant places in Asia, Africa and even South America. Although there are over 9000 species of grass, only a handful fall into the classification of ornamentals. It's important you understand just a few basics of how grasses grow, because this determines how you garden with them.
Grasses reproduce by sending up wands of flower-like structures that are pollinated by the wind.
It's these wands that make the plants so attractive in the garden, and long after they have lost all their seed the remaining wands are still beautiful. Annual grasses are those which sprout, grow to maturity, produce seed, and then die in a single season. That makes them fast growing but short lived. The single most common annual ornamental is quaking grass, Brizia media . Perennial grasses are the best ornamentals because once you plant them they grow larger and more beautiful with each consecutive year.