Hakonechloa macra Sunflare - Japanese Forest Grass

The Hakonechloa macra 'Sunflare' is a recent variety of Japanese grass, a beautiful improvement of the All Gold cultivar with golden foliage. This perennial grass compensates for its modest size with a magnificently architectural habit, both flexible, spreading, and rounded, and its autumn foliage where chartreuse yellow, gold, burnt orange, red, and purple blend randomly. This hardy plant slowly forms a magnificent ground cover that produces an astonishing effect of mass, colour, and movement under the caress of the wind. Plant it in a clear understory, in a large border, or even in pots in dappled sun.

The Hakonechloa macra is a rhizomatous and stoloniferous grass belonging to the poaceae family, native to the mountains of Japan. The 'Sunflare' variety, from which it originates, is a recent Canadian breeding. The plant forms a clump 40-45 cm (16-18in) tall and 50 cm (20in) wide, composed of very leafy culms, initially upright, then trailing, evoking superimposed cascades and giving a very distinctive aspect to the plant. Its growth is rather slow, and the foliage is deciduous. The wide deciduous leaves of this grass, initially chartreuse green, gradually take on a more yellow colour, and are sometimes tinted with gold and red from summer if the plant is exposed to more sunlight. In late summer and autumn, gold nuances, orange tones, and increasingly intense red appear, turning purple at the end of the season. The flowers, arranged in thin spikelets, do not offer any real interest but can be preserved for winter.

Magnificent in a mass planting, Hakonechloa has become a highly trendy plant in recent years. This 'Sunflare' variety is also very easily grown in a pot and will find a special place in a partially shaded area of the terrace alongside hostas, ferns, bergenias, or heucheras, which are equally easy and tolerate the same growing conditions. This grass tolerates all exposures as long as the soil remains moist, for example on the banks of a pond. Nevertheless, it will give its best when used as a large ground cover in the shaded parts of the garden, in a clear understory, against an east-facing wall, or to border a bed of bushes in humus-rich and moist soil, to which it adds roundness and colour.