Who doesn't love a low-maintenance plant that adds color, height and movement to the landscape and garden?
Ornamental grasses fit that bill and with just one simple caveat - you need to know if the plants are warm season ornamental grasses or cool season ones.
Another bonus: because ornamental grasses produce a flower head and a seed pod, they'll provide four seasons of interest. That means, color, height and movement in spring and summer and even through the colder seasons, their blades will poke out of the snow and sway in winter breezes.
Cool season grasses, like the feathered reed grass or blue fescue, love cool weather. This plant look beautiful in the landscape and will stay green all season long.
Warm season grasses, like fountain grass, switchgrass and maidenhair grass, provide more drama in the landscape and can sometimes grow eight or 10 feet tall.
Warm season grasses are great to add to areas where you can plant bulbs, like daffodils and tulips, around them.
And early-blooming and early-growing plants like geraniums or bleeding hearts can be planted nearby to help hide the grasses when they haven't greened up yet.
Also, if you plant ornamental grasses and then think twice about its current location, once the grass starts greening up, you can dig it up, divide it and replant in another location.
Q: I'm convinced I have snake worms on my property! The coffee-ground-like castings are all over the ground. I'm wondering what to do with that yard waste. In the past, I have always taken it to Addison County Solid Waste Management in Middlebury. What do you think? - Patricia, in Bristol
A: Snake worms are in the soil and moving worm-infested soil is how they spread around but you should be fine bringing any yard waste, plant stems and things like that to the solid waste district to be composted.
And here's a technique to determine if you have jumping worms or snake worms in your soil: Take a third of a cup of mustard seed, add it in a cup of water and boil it. Pour the mustard and water mixture over any soil where you suspect there are any snake worms.
If they are, in fact, snake worms, the mustard mixture will make them come to the surface where they will furiously begin wiggling around. From there, pick them up and discard of them away from any other soil.
UVM Extension has a lot of helpful information about identifying and mitigating snake or "jumping" worms.
Q: I want to plant a small tree and then beneath it, plant various annuals and perennials in a really large galvanized container in a shady spot. I'm thinking of an evergreen tree. Do you have any suggestions for this climate? - Barbara, in Norwich
A: A couple of dwarf evergreens could grow well under those conditions, like the dwarf Alberta spruce or for something a bit different, try a tall Juniper compressa. This Juniper grows pencil-straight, about four or five feet tall, which would leave room around its base plant flowers in the galvanized container.
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