For fresh color and texture three seasons a year, few plants compare to the Perennial Plant of the Year 2001! This Feather Reedgrass is equally valuable as a quick screen, specimen, foundation planting, or border accent. With deep green foliage, magnificent 5-foot flower plumes, and golden seedheads that last till frost (when they may be cut for lovely dried winter arrangements), Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' is a carefree sun-lover no garden should be without.

The dark, glossy foliage begins in early spring on vertical plants that reach 2 to 3 feet tall (topped in summer by 5-foot flower stems) and 18 to 24 inches wide. Calamagrostis is known as "perpetual motion" grass because the slightest breeze makes its foliage rustle and shimmy--a valuable characteristic in any garden. The blooms arise in early summer, opening a startling pink and quickly maturing to a creamy-ivory shade that lasts many weeks. These are followed by golden seedheads, which narrow and become more distinctive as they mature over fall.

'Karl Foerster' is named for the renowned horticulturist who introduced it in 1950, though his original nomenclature for this natural hybrid of C. epigejos and C. arundinacea was C. epigejos 'Hortotum.' Foerster developed it at the Hamburg Botanical Garden, and it reached the United States via Denmark in 1964.

Content in full sun to partial shade and any moist but well-drained garden soil, it is virtually carefree once established, tolerating heat, drought, humidity, and unseasonable cold. If planting as a foundation or screen, space the plants about 2 feet apart for solid coverage. Zones 4-9.