Growing Ornamental Grasses at Altitude

by Susan Scott Gardeners in Steamboat are amazing! They deal with high altitude, cold temperatures, and most of all, very dry summers. I love to garden, but when the heat of summer arrives, I prefer to have really easy plants because I can’t find the time to tend the garden and I don’t have automatic sprinklers. I have found several perennial ornamental grasses that are a great fit for Steamboat. They are very low maintenance: cold hardy; drought tolerant; will grow in sun or shade; deer resistant; pest and disease free; and, mostly tolerant of poor soil. The area I have placed them only receives approximately 4 hours of sun each day in summer. (Hint: more sun, more water yields bigger plants!) I began with the tall, showy feather reed grass ( Calamagrostis acutiflora “Karl Foerster”). It grows around 4’ tall with a reddish brown stalk in the spring, the tops feathering out with a beautiful golden wheat color. It provides a lovely backdrop that can “hide” objects like the electric mete