Saccharum ravennae Seeds | Ravenna Grass

Tall clump of grey-green grass with arching leaves and silvery plumes held high above the foliage — Ravenna grass (Saccharum ravennae): Poaceae, Mediterranean basin and Iran

LATIN NAME: Saccharum ravennae

COMMON NAME: Ravenna Grass

Plant Profile

Ravenna grass is the tall, silvery grass that stands in for pampas in colder gardens, and it does the job better than most substitutes. Clumps rise from a woody crown into a fountain of arching, grey-green blades, and from late summer the flower stems push up another metre above them, each ending in a plume that opens narrow and silvery and slowly loosens into a soft, buff-coloured feather. The whole plant reaches three to four metres in flower. It is a warm-season grass, so it sits still through late spring and only begins to move when the ground has properly warmed. Native around the Mediterranean and eastwards into Iran, it has been grown in European gardens since the eighteenth century and has naturalised in parts of North America and Australia. The plumes hold their shape into winter and bleach to pale straw, which is why the plant is still standing in most gardens long after the asters have gone.

Science & Biotechnology

Ravenna grass belongs to the sugarcane tribe, Andropogoneae, and was long carried as Erianthus ravennae before molecular work moved it into Saccharum. That placement matters beyond nomenclature: it sits in the same intergeneric complex as sugarcane and Miscanthus, and breeders have used it as a donor of cold tolerance, ratoon vigour and disease resistance in sugarcane improvement programmes. Like the rest of the tribe it runs C4 photosynthesis, which is why it grows so fast once summer heat arrives and why its leaves are tough and silica-rich. The plume is a dispersal device as much as a decoration; each spikelet carries a ring of silky hairs that catch wind and carry the grain away from the parent clump. Studies of the Saccharum complex also use it as a biomass and phytoremediation candidate on marginal, metal-contaminated ground, where its deep fibrous roots and high yield are useful.

Uses & Benefits

The plant earns its space in the second half of the year, when the border has run out of ideas. Use it as a single specimen on a lawn, in a gravel garden, or repeated along a boundary where its height can block a view without looking like a hedge. The plumes are excellent cut, fresh or dried, and they last for months indoors if cut before the seed begins to shed. On a bank or a loose slope the fibrous root mass holds soil through winter rain. It is not a forage grass; the leaves are tough and unpalatable once mature, and stock leave it alone. In parts of California, Australia and southern Europe it seeds about freely on disturbed ground, so the responsible course in a mild climate is to cut the plumes before they shatter, or to plant one of the sterile cultivars where these exist.

Growing from Seed

Sow in late winter onto the surface of a gritty, free-draining compost and press the seed in without covering it, since light helps. Keep the tray at around 20 to 24 °C; germination is uneven, starting in ten days and trailing on for a month. Prick out when the seedlings have three leaves, pot on steadily through their first summer, and plant out the following spring once the risk of frost has passed. The first year is spent building roots and the clump will look modest; the flowering stems arrive properly in the second or third season. Choose the sunniest spot available with ground that drains within a few hours of rain. Cut the old stems down to about 20 cm in late winter, before the new growth starts, and lift and divide congested clumps in early spring if the centre begins to die out.

Our Take

Few grasses give this much height with so little fuss, and the winter skeleton is worth as much as the summer plume. Give it sun, drainage and a season to settle.

Herb Seeds