Panicum ‘Northwind’

Description

Perennial Plant Association’s Plant of the Year 2014; Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit

Panicum ‘Northwind’ is a warm-season, deciduous, perennial grass offering year-round interest. A long-lived native ornamental grass, bold and bodacious, ‘Northwind’ retains a striking upright, columnar form throughout the season. In late summer to early fall, a multitude of airy, pink-tinged white flower plumes enhance the pillar of olive to bluish green blades as they turn wheat color in fall. The multi-branched plumes persist into winter, turning beige as the showy billowing seed heads mature, lending winter interest to the garden and providing a welcome late-season food source for birds.

A Panicum virgatum cultivar, commonly called switchgrass, ‘Northwind’ is an herbaceous grass with an erect, narrow, clump-forming habit and moderate growth rate. Rhizomatous, the plant slowly spreads. Panicum ‘Northwind’ makes a stunning ve