Ornamental Grasses

Grounds (The Small Garden, 1994) takes on the plant world's largest family with an articulate and methodical presentation of grasses that includes horticultural history, botanical descriptions, cultural instructions and design recommendations. Readers will examine grasses as they fit into boundaried English gardens-as-art schemes and the flowing gardens-as-nature tradition imitating the American prairie. The vocabulary of grasses includes references to forms of leaf (""tufted,"" ""fountain-like"") and flower (""spike,"" ""whisk,"" ""plume""). Grounds divides his design chapters between colored-leaf grasses and flowering grasses. Segueing from the tradition of the contained English garden, with its static structure, defined edges and focus on blossoms and high maintenance, Grounds advocates visual drifts and rustling movement of flowering lawns, discussing ""modern grasseries"" in formal gardens, container grasses and the wild gardens of wetlands and dry woodlands. Swarms of Latin nomenclature may cloud the minds of some readers, but the abundant color photos will inspire the design instincts of others. (Aug.)