Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses

a book by Rick Darke

Ornamental grasses surpass all other garden plants in their luminous qualities. Their colors are softly sophisticated, varied, and subtle. They include a striking array of textures, forms, sizes, and flowering times and have appeal in the garden throughout the year. Grasses’ ethereal quality, sound, and movement make them ideal choices for gardeners and landscape designers alike. Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses provides an accessible and comprehensive reference to the wide range of grasses available to the gardener.

Building on Darke’s bestselling The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses, the guide describes many new species and cultivars, includes dozens of new photographs, and presents cultivation information and descriptions in a handy, compact format. Covering 530 species and cultivars and illustrated with 320 color photographs, Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses is a valuable complement to Darke’s Color Encyclopedia. Its convenient format makes it an ideal reference to take to the nursery or garden center.

Media reviews of this book:

“Retailing for under $20.00, anyone wishing to have all needed information on ornamental grasses should make this small investment and obtain this work.”

—John Bryan, Garden Newsletter, March 2005

“Rick Darke’s personal insight into each plants outstanding horticultural features and his excellent photographs demonstrate both a professional and hands-on love of ornamental grasses.”

—Dr. James L. Luteyn, Plant Science Bulletin, Vol. 51, No. 1 Spring 2005

“This is the handy-dandy book to take to your garden center when shopping for any ornamental grass.”

—George Graine, VMGA Report, January 2005

“Rick Darke’s gift with words carries this Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses from the arena of useful reference to the poetry corner.”

—Mary Ann Fink, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 28, 2004

“A must-have for any gardener who wants to incorporate decorative grasses into the garden and landscape.”

—Nancy Szerlag, The Detroit News, December 4, 2004

Publishing details:

Flexibind, 228 pages, 5-¾" x 8-¼", 320 color photos

An excerpt from this book:

Though technically all grasses increase in width or spread to some degree by lateral shoots, for garden purposes it is common and practical to group grasses as either runners or clumpers.

Running grasses spread rather rapidly by rhizomes, in which case they may also be called rhizomatous grasses, or by stolons, in which case they may be called stoloniferous. Most running ornamental grasses are rhizomatous. Stoloniferous growth is more common among turf grasses and weedy species, such as crab grasses, Digitaria species.

About Rick Darke

Rick Darke is a landscape design consultant, author, and photographer based in Landenberg, Pennsylvania. He was a member of Longwood Gardens’ staff for twenty years, first as assistant taxonomist and then as curator of plants. Darke received the Scientific Award of the American Horticultural Society, and his landmark work, The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses, earned a Book Award from the American Horticultural Society.