Ten Hakonechloa Macra Grasses Planted In Front of Pizza Oven Bed Border - July 2026

This post is going up in early July, but I seem to have forgotten to post about this planting earlier this growing season.  I actually planted these in late May, so this is six weeks late.  Better late than never (for the Garden Diary), right?

I planted up the front border of the Pizza Oven bed that was marked as one of my "Garden Edits" from a few seasons back and was the basis of my #3 Priority Project post earlier this year.  At that time, I called for twelve (12) Hakonechloa Macra grasses to fill the front border and filling in spaces in front of and behind the tree swing tree.  

Over Memorial Day weekend, I bought ten one-gallon containers of the straight variety Macra grasses from Roy Diblik's Northwind Perennial Farm.  And, I lined them up along the front edge from the one legacy grass stretching (almost) all the way to the front corner of the pizza oven.

See below for a couple photos of the grasses spaced out in their nursery pots:

Here, below, is a look at the grasses after they've been planted.  I used a mix of compost and municipal biosolids to bed them in as this bed is full of clay.  Note to self:  I should look at some options for amending these beds with things like perlite and/or expanded shale.  

Now that these have been in the ground for three weeks, they're showing some new growth.  The photos above were from late May.  

However, the photo below is from mid-June after some time getting established and putting on some new growth.  The tips have grown, but the color seems brighter than I was expecting for this being the straight species?  See below - also note the dahlias in rabbit cages behind the grasses.

Compare the grass on the far left that has been there for a few seasons to these newer, smaller ones.  Color difference, right? 

When I take a closer look and do a comparison, I don't think I'm imagining the color difference between planting and today.  See below for an animation of a look at the last two grasses via cropped photos.  The lighter (chartreuse?) one is from mid-June.  The grasses are clearly bigger, too.

What comes next?  More of these grasses, I think.

First, I didn't plant *any* behind the tree swing tree.  There's four that can go there.  

Then, there is room for (at least) four more along the front border in the space that is currently empty.  

That's eight.

Lastly...what about second row?  I liked the way the original All Golds looked when they were stacked into two rows like this.  The dahlias are planted in some of the spots, but I could see (at least) three more in the middle.  

That's 11 more Japanese Forest grasses.  

But, likely for another day.

#3 and #4 on my to-do list deal with this bed.  Finish the garden edit and plant it up for depth.  

Let's call #3 (mostly) done.  And, #4 has started.