Eragrostis ferruginea Seeds | Rust-coloured Love Grass
LATIN NAME: Eragrostis ferruginea
COMMON NAME: Rust-Coloured Love Grass
Plant Profile
The Rust-Coloured Love Grass is a tufted perennial grass from the dry meadows and open slopes of eastern Asia, and its whole presence is texture: narrow, arching, grey-green leaves form a dense clump, and from midsummer the fine, much-branched flower heads rise above them on slender stems, opening greenish and maturing through a warm, rust-brown that gives the species both its name and its season. The heads sway in the lightest breeze, catch the low sun of late afternoon, and stand through winter as a soft, bleached presence.
It reaches sixty to ninety centimetres in flower, spreads slowly by short rhizomes, and holds dry banks and poor soil with the deep, fibrous root system typical of its genus. It is a quiet plant, and its value is exactly that.
Science & Biotechnology
The genus Eragrostis is large and economically shadowed by one member: teff, the tiny-seeded, iron-rich Ethiopian grain behind injera, a gluten-free staple with a growing global market, and the comparative biology of the genus draws on that crop’s genetics. Within the genus, this species belongs to the group of tough, tufted, drought-avoiding perennials whose soil-holding habit has drawn attention in grassland ecology, and its seed biology, small and numerous, follows the wind-dispersal strategy of its relatives. In its native range it is a common component of dry grassland and roadside verges, surviving grazing and mowing by holding its growing points low.
Its autumn colour change is a genuine ornamental trait, and seed-grown plants are uniform enough for meadow-style plantings.
Uses & Benefits
In the garden it is a fine-textured, drought-tolerant grass for a dry bank, a gravel bed, a meadow-style planting or the front of a border, where its rust-brown autumn heads catch the low light and stand bleached through winter. Birds take the small grain from the ripened heads, and the dense root system holds loose soil on slopes.
It asks for sun and drainage and nothing else, and it combines naturally with other dry-grassland plants. Cut the previous year’s heads to the base in early spring to let the new growth through, and it will renew itself without further attention for years.
Growing from Seed
Sow the fine seed on the surface of a free-draining compost in spring, pressing it in without covering and keeping the tray warm, bright and just moist; germination follows within two to three weeks. Grow the seedlings on the dry side in full sun, potting them on as the clumps fill.
Plant out into any poor to average soil in full sun, spacing clumps forty centimetres apart for a drift or singly as a specimen, and water through the first summer only. It is fully drought-tolerant thereafter, needs no feeding, and the single annual task is a hard cut-back in early spring before the new growth starts.
Our Take
A quiet, fine-textured grass that turns rust-brown in autumn and stands all winter. Sun, drainage and one cut a year are the whole job; the low light does the rest.
Related Reading
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