Echinochloa phyllopogon Seeds | Barnyard Grass
LATIN NAME: Echinochloa phyllopogon
COMMON NAME: Barnyard Grass
Plant Profile
Barnyard Grass (Echinochloa phyllopogon) is a grass in the grass family. Barnyard grass is a tall, bold grass of wet edge, and dense, green heads nod over water through the summer. Grass is a fine, generous presence of wild patch and wet garden. It is a grass of open, sunny, moist ground. The flowering period doubles as a feeding season for bees and other pollinators. Not many plants ask so little and repay so much.
Science & Biotechnology
Echinochloa phyllopogon sits in the grass family, a group that keeps botanists, horticulturists and plant breeders busy with questions of classification, adaptation and ornamental potential. Raising it from seed today is a matter of ordinary good practice rather than specialist skill.
Uses & Benefits
Beyond its ornamental appeal, Barnyard Grass has the practical versatility that makes a plant worth growing from seed year after year. Barnyard grass is a fine, bold grass of wet edge and wild patch. Dense, narrow, green or purple-tinged panicles nod over water through late summer, and tufts give fine, soft cover and seed for water birds and small birds of wild edge. It has been written up in agricultural and ecological papers for dense heads and wet-ground ways, and it is a fine, generous grass of open, sunny, moist garden. After the first season it asks for very little beyond a place that suits it.
Barnyard grass was a historic grain crop of Asia and Africa, still eaten as a fast, hardy millet in Japan and India.
Growing from Seed
Barnyard Grass grows readily from seed. Level a tray of loose seed compost, sow evenly, cover to about the seed’s own depth, and keep it moist in full light. Transplant the sturdiest seedlings to their permanent spots and let them develop without disturbance.
Our Take
Barnyard Grass is the kind of plant that rewards a permanent spot. What it needs is basic: sun, drainage, and a little patience while it establishes.
Related Reading
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