Pennisetum orientale Fairy Tails - Oriental Fountain Grass

The Pennisetum orientale 'Fairy Tails' is an excellent improvement of the wild species: hardier, more floriferous, excellent for borders as well as pots, this superb Flowering Fountain Grass also bears very beautiful, longer and more upright, fluffy flower heads of a luminous very pale pink colour with silver reflections. Forming a beautiful clump of flexible leaves of slightly greyish green, this perennial grass is remarkable for its elegance and light gracefulness but also because it remains decorative until late in the season, even in winter. Essential and versatile, very reliable, this Pennisetum is of unbridled poetry, both in a modern setting and in romantic or natural compositions. Its flower heads are magnificent in dried bouquets.

The 'Fairy Tails' Fountain Grass is a horticultural selection with somewhat obscure origins, discovered in 2001 in a nursery in Florida. It counts among its ancestors the Pennisetum orientale, a rhizomatous perennial plant native to Central Asia and the southwest.

Semi-evergreen to evergreen in not-too-cold climates, this Fairy Tails variety is hardy down to -15°C (5°F) in well-drained soil and shows fairly rapid growth. The plant forms an upright fountain of rough, ribbon-like foliage of glaucous colour, 1 m (3ft) tall when in flower, 60-70 cm (24-28in) for the foliage, occupying about 60 cm (24in) in diameter at the base. The flowering, particularly abundant, generally takes place from early August to October, longer if the autumn is mild and if faded inflorescences are removed. The long, thin spikes slightly droop above the foliage, carried by stiff stems. They consist of tiny pale pink spikelets, gathered in narrow, 20 to 30 cm (8 to 12in) long panicles with a feathery appearance, covered with long silver hairs. As they fade, they turn whiter, then buff-coloured, and remain decorative in winter.

The 'Fairy Tails' Pennisetum is a graphic, sturdy, undemanding plant, sober and hardy almost everywhere. It is versatile, with its clean and elegant aspect welcome in a wild or contemporary garden, but also because of its ease of cultivation. Perfectly adapted to sea spray and fairly tolerant of drought, it is useful in a garden without watering and in flower pots or rockeries, for example, combined with autumn stonecrops. Plant it at the edge of a path in mass, or create romantic scenes with summer or autumn-flowering perennials such as Lespedeza, spike speedwells, shrubby salvias, asters and echinaceas. Pairing it with summer or autumn-flowering heathers (Erica multiflora in chalky soil, Erica lusitanica or arborea in acid soil) is very successful. This grass can also be used as a large ground cover.