Off to botany: grasses for mom

If you like your mother, you give her flowers, and not just on Mother's Day.

Tulips, gerberas and roses always work, orchids are also a classic, but somehow old-fashioned.

If they are cut flowers, a meadow flower bouquet is recommended.

I would also recommend potted flowers for sustainable reasons, as long as the mother has a green thumb.

I would only advise against pansies.

Not that anyone gets it wrong.

Andrew Frey

Freelance author in the science section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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But how about grasses.

Not only are they easy to care for and durable, they also fit into any garden, even on the balcony.

They serve as a framework for the whole year, whether for primroses in spring or for begonias in summer - next to flowering plants or trees, they make a good impression.

On the other hand, I find the grass less decorative in these clean gravel front gardens, which pseudo-hip landscape architects have been creating pointlessly for a few years now.

Sedges against the dog toilet

For some time now I've been seeing ornamental grasses more and more often, and recently the beds on our street have been planted with sedges.

This hardy and evergreen sauergrass plant of the

genus not only looks pretty, it also makes the street appear much neater and has a welcome side effect: since the sedges with their cutting-sharp leaf edges have populated the beds, fewer dogs have emptied their bowels in the street beds.

The term sedge comes from the Latin secare, to cut.

The selection of grasses is enormous, with the sedges alone there are three subgenera.

Most of the approximately 2,000 species come from North America, East Asia and Europe, but they do not occur in the tropics.

One of the smallest is the mountain sedge

, which measures barely 15 centimeters.

with its white-edged leaves

is a little taller and also very pretty to look at .

, on the other hand, wants to fly high

.

She easily manages one and a half meters.

They are also available with colored accents

But it doesn't always have to be the sedge.

, a member of the grass

family of which related species are cultivated as millet, is also popular.

Originally from East Asia or Australia, its popularity is explained by its ocher false spikes, which turn silvery white during flowering, it rarely reaches more than half a meter, and with their tousled hairs they are actually reminiscent of cleaning tools for bulbs from the time before electrification.

If the mother likes to set her own accents in the garden, other grasses are recommended.

One tip is switchgrass

, a prairie grass native to North America.

It forms roots four meters long and also protects sandy soils from erosion.

As a so-called C4 plant, it is suitable – like corn – as an energy plant because it binds more carbon dioxide than other plants.

But other arguments count in the garden: their beauty, for example.

There are two cultivated varieties: one has blue leaves and red leaf tips, in autumn the leaves turn a bright yellow.

The other has deciduous leaves and turns intense red to brown in autumn.

But if you don't want to overwhelm your mother, you can simply use artificial grass.

The trade offers lifelike foxtail and button grass, from ten euros you can be there.

The autumn colors will be missing, but decorative grass in a shapely vase is always better than a loveless box of chocolates.