Purple Moor Grass
Molinia caerulea
Slow to settle — two or three years before it looks like much — and then it stands, so long as the soil stays poor.
- Type
- Grass · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Gold and chartreuse
- Sunlight
- Full sun to light shade.
- Watering
- Likes moist soil, though it copes with dry once established.
- Feeding
- No feeding required.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- July
- Pruning
- Barely any — gather the fallen stems in late winter.
- Overwintering
- Hardy; leave it be through winter.
- Apr–Jul Spring Growth
- Jul–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Dec Growing
- Dec–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Apr Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 23.6 in
- In-row spacing
- 23.6 in
- Between rows
- 2 ft 6 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A dense fibrous mat
- Working depth
- 8–24 in
- Can reach
- 5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 24 in–4 ft across, about 1–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
Thousands of fine roots knit the top of the soil into a turf, which is what holds a bank together and what makes an established clump so hard to lift. Prairie grasses send a few roots far below the mat as well.
The habit is Purple Moor Grass’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Generally trouble-free No notable pest or disease problems when grown in the right conditions — one of the easy ones.
Grasses, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com