Festival grass is a graceful grower that lends color to the garden all year.

A rather recent introduction into the world of colorful garden foliage plants is the Festival Grass™ . This is a member of the Cordyline family. Cordylines are typically tropical plants with showy, colorful foliage. Some

have been popular house plants, like the ‘Ti Plant’or ‘Good Luck Plant’ (Cordyline terminalis). The other half of the family grow in Australia and reach small tree-like proportions with simple branching and stiff leaves. These are tougher plants, drought-tolerant, and capable of growing well even in poor soils. Although the original species were mostly plain green or tinged with purple, hybrids now offer colors with chocolate, yellow, and even bright pink hues. All cordylines have wide, ornamental, grass-like foliage that grows around a central stalk.

Festival Grass™ has a look that seems half way between the delicate thin leaves of the tropical varieties and the stiff Australian types. It has a glowing burgundy red color thatsuffuses the entire leaf. The leaves are flat, about a half inch wide, pliable, and graceful. I They form a decorative, arching fountain in the landscape design. This plant carries the rather cumbersome official name of Cordyline hybrid var. ‘JURred’ P.P.# 14224.

Festival Grass™ grows to a height of two to three feet tall. It loves a moist soil, but has proven to be reasonably drought-resistant. Give it full sun in mild areas, but offer some shade in dry, hot gardens. The Festival Grass will handle a light frost.

Use the eye-catching foliage to accent the garden with ruby gem stone glowing color year round. In the spring it puts out a spray of delicate whitish flowers. It is decorative enough to be a focal point as a single plant or design Festival Grass™ plants into the landscape in clusters for high impact color. It also looks good used like an ornamental grass.

Originally posted 2011-08-29 05:44:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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