Every week, we feature a St. Louis-area home to showcase, usually because of its great style; but sometimes, just being quirky earns it the distinction. Height: 1-2 feet. Giant reed has a clumping habit and thrives in warm areas, especially where the environment is wet, such as ditches and around ponds and streams. It prefers to grow in moist sites and disturbed areas, but is just as happy growing in the garden. Check his blog at mobot.org/gardeninghelp/hilight.asp, Write to Chip Tynan of the Missouri Botanical Garden at chip.tynan@mobot.org or Horticultural Answer Service, Department PD, P.O. Looks like corn stalks. This grass is beautiful and we call it “corn grass.” Do you know what the name of it is? A dead center in ornamental grass is typical when plants have been around for a while. That fuzzy tassel is full of seed and they will spray all over your yard. Where it is fully hardy, it can spread aggressively and may become invasive if not controlled. Quack grass (Elytrigia repens) is a cool-season, perennial member of the grass family. Unlike corn plants, quack grass has leaves with a waxy underside and a hairy or waxy upper surface. One such plant is pampas grass (genus Cortadera). Not really a desirable grass, just a noxious weed. In summer, quack grass produces spiked flowers up to 8 inches long. The leaves have smooth edges and a middle vein that is off-white at its base. works with the rest of the fall decor on the porch: The grasses echo the corn stalks, while the orange bougainvillea and bittersweet pick up the orange of the pumpkins. How to Harvest Glass Gem Corn. The white, feathery flowers develop on stalks that tower above the main grassy tussock. The leaves are about 1/2 inch wide and grow up to 10 inches long, making them easily distinguishable from thinner, desirable turf grasses. Millet From birdseed. 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Other gardeners prefer their gardens to be tidy and cut down their ornamental grasses in the fall. Growing ornamental corn: Corn needs rich, fertile soil and full sun. It looks slightly like corn, (when the corn is first growing) and grows very rapidly. The uncut stalk protects and insulates the “crown” of the plant that keeps the fire of life burning for the next growing season. A • From your description, but without the benefit of seeing it, my guess is that you are describing giant reed (Arundo donax). Unlike running bamboos, its roots are relatively easy to dig to curb its spread. Subscribe to keep reading. What is this plant? Check his blog at: mobot.org/gardeninghelp/hilight.asp. How it looks: This plant grows with one or more canes (stems) and then produces new stems and a crown of leaves near the top of the cane. Try to spray on windless days so the herbicide does not drift onto desirable plants and kill them. Arundo donax. It grows best in USDA zones 6 through 11. At the end of its growing season, the corn stalks and husks will begin to dry out and turn brown. ... Nice work, as someone said before it looks great in the farmland areas for filler. Jot down daily weather observations. Video of the Day Volume 0% Quack grass also has a clumping habit and can grow around 4 feet tall. If you choose to cut your zebra grass down in the fall after a hard frost kills the foliage, leave 5 – 6 inches of the stalks rather than cutting them down to soil level. https://homeguides.sfgate.com/weeds-look-like-cornstalks-91947.html It looks just like a corn stalk with a creamy white to yellowish stripe up the middle of the leaves. 03 of 13 Audrey Lynn has been a journalist and writer since 1974. The leaves are long and lance-shaped, like corn's, and the hollow stems are used to make reeds for musical instruments. Arundo grows best in moist, well-drained soils in full sun. From a distance it looks like sweet corn in the field but it has no cobs, just a large tassel at the top. Write to Chip Tynan of the Missouri Botanical Garden at chip.tynan@mobot.org or Horticultural Answer Service, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, 63110. Certainly its most outstanding feature is its size. Wait until the husks are dry and brown to harvest. For large stands of weeds, a broader stream of herbicide may be used. Dallisgrass often has hairy-looking leaf sheaths at the base of the clump. ‘Karl Foerster’ Feather Reed Grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) Need a grass for wet … Some sorghum varieties only reach about 5 feet in height, but many sweet and broom corn plants can grow to over 8 feet. Plant in a full sun location. Severe winter cold may kill stems back to the ground, but the roots are likely to survive, so it will benefit from mulch over its roots to pull it through the severest cold spells. Ornamental grasses can be cut and bundled to add a corn-stalk-like bonus to fall flower pots. Photo courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden. Leaves: 3 to 8 ft long and 1 to 4 inches wide, grouped in erect or spreading tussocks, edges of leaves sharp. Cut back warm-season grasses in fall, or any time before mid-spring: If you enjoy a tidy winter garden, trim warm-season ornamental grasses in the fall. Growing up to 20 feet tall, the giant reed (Arundo donax L.) also produces stems that look like cornstalks. Arundo is an ornamental grass of European origin that produces large bamboo-like canes with corn-like foliage. It can grow quite tall in a single growing season. Now a dizzying array of grasses is available to gardeners throughout the country. This is common to everywhere I've ever lived. Sweet sorghum is harvested about two weeks after the milk stage by cutting off the canes at ground level, stripping off the leaves, and setting aside the green canes. Glyphosate is a nonselective, systemic herbicide that kills all three of these weeds. Ornamental grasses are trouble-free plants that add texture and motion to the landscape. Native to South America and New Zealand, this group of plants grows in grassy clumps. The soil must be well drained and moist. Beneath this season’s holiday décor is an extraordinary Colonial Revival style home with many fascinating characteristics. Crabgrass looks almost exactly like a corn stalk in its youngest growth stages. What's great about growing a corn plant as well as how attractive they look is they're fairly easy to care for and maintain - like many other dracaena plants. Arundo grows best in moist, well-drained soils in full sun. Blue Fescue. It is extremely invasive, apparantly, taking over creeks and riversides. Well, not as low as closely sheared … Width: up to 1 feet. Difference Between Zoysia Grass & Crabgrass, How to Get Rid of Sprouting Hay in the Lawn, Low Maintenance Grass to Grow in Rocky Soil, UC IPM Online: Weed Gallery -- Johnsongrass, How to Identify Weeds in St. Augustine Grass. In late summer, giant reed produces a purplish to silver colored plume up to 2 feet long that rises above the foliage. Looks like grain sorghum what we called high gear to me. One is that bunches of taller ones can be cut and bundled to mimic corn stalks in fall decorations. Miscanthus sinensis 'Arabesque', Arabesque Silver Grass is a large, upright, compact selection of silver grass with leaves from 1 to 2 feet in length. The Dracaena plant does not produce an actual stalk of corn, nor does it tassel or produce ears. It will be ready to harvest in October.The heads will be little rust colored balls about the size of BB’s. A crabgrass seedling that is just beginning to sprout from soil will have 1/4-inch leaves and can easily be mistaken for a young corn plant. 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