Celebrate these easy-care, hard-working plants

AS we move into spring and leave behind the wintry weather we cut down the herbaceous plants at Harlow Carr Garden, leaving the evergreens to bridge the gardening gap, before the new season begins. The most hardworking of these evergreen plants are perhaps overlooked, the versatile evergreen grasses and sedges.

Grasses and sedges are from two different families (Poaceae and Cyperaceae), and can be difficult to distinguish apart. Sedges have triangular solid stems, and the leaves split into a three tricorn arrangement, whereas grasses have cylindrical, usually hollow stems, with alternate leaf arrangements. Using a selection of these it is possible to overcome some of the more challenging areas of your garden, under dry, shady canopies of trees and those wetter areas where mosses and lichen flourish.

The genera Carex are particularly versatile and beautiful. Last year the floral team planted a glorious drift of Carex morrowii ‘Ice Dance’ around deciduous trees on a newly created border, the creamy-white striped green leaves appear entirely indifferent to the tree roots which they were planted in to. The dryness and lack of sun has not stopped them establishing really quickly, and we are going to divide this spring. Over the borders into the dense and suckering tree roots of the Maytenus boaria, sits very happily, Carex divulsa. Although not as showy as ‘Ice Dance’, the dark green narrow leaves have a mounded habit and are happily colonized a gorgeous low growing green carpet.

For those damp and waterlogged areas Carex elata ‘Aurea’ is well suited. This tussock sedge, with bright golden leaves up to 3ft, are at their most beautiful in the summer months, fading to a papery mound during the winter, not strictly evergreen but invaluable, coping with the dappled shade of the Catalpa tree where it is planted. Carex secta is another fan of these types of conditions; a larger sedge with bright green narrow leaves forming fountains of foliage up to 4ft.

Anemanthele lessoniana or Pheasant tail grass is a graceful and eye-catching grass. It happily tolerates a range of conditions, from full sun to fairly deep shade, and very dry. There is an informal drift of this under an established birch tree and it too has flourished this last season. The arching leaves change colour throughout the season, greens to oranges to red with varying densities; in dappled light it is truly gorgeous, especially with the pinkish-red flowers, which are produced in a gauzy mass in late summer.

A relatively new grass to the borders is Sesleria autumnalis. Strong growing with acid-lime green leaves, it has been a perfect foil in the summer for the rich purple of the salvias, with silvery seed heads held aloft all winter, great planted in drifts for a naturalistic feel, or as an edger, reaching only 45cm in stature.

Perhaps the largest evergreen grass (over 4ft) we have is the Poa labillardierei. Originating from Australia it has defied the books and the Yorkshire winters and is still flourishing after ten years. Large clumps of steely-blue needle like leaves arranged into a dense giant silver pom-poms, it stands proudly at the top of the borders in an exposed windy position.

All these evergreen sedges and grasses are easy to maintain, treat them the same - combed through with a robust rake to take the dead thatch out of the crown, just once a year in spring, not cut to the ground like their herbaceous cousins and they will reward you with colour and texture all year round

So, maybe the next time you ponder on a challenging or uninteresting area of your garden which needs a revamp, you will consider a sedge or a grass, let them to do the hard work for you.