Golden Oats or Giant Oat Grass, Stipa gigantea in our front garden.

Last Friday I cycled past a lovely front garden in Crown Road in the Norfolk village of Buxton. It was dominated by the wonderful Golden Oat Grass or Giant Oat Grass, Stipa gigantea, which was magnificent. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, but the mental image stays in my mind as a source of inspiration.

We have our own single specimen of Stipa gigantea in the large raised bed in our front garden. This is its first year of flowering and its handsome golden brown heads of oat-like flowers look lovely at the moment, especially in late evening light.

For the first year, there was just a low clump of green leaves. Then, this May, the flowers started to emerge, green at first, large panicles of oat-like, long-awned purplish flowers which soon ripened to gold. These will stay on the plant into the winter, swaying in the slightest wind to add movement, grace and drama to the garden. The flower heads can reach eight feet (2.4 metres) tall but they are see-through and allow plants further back in the bed to show through.

Stipa gigantea is from southern Spain, Portugal and northern Morocco, where it can be found growing amongst scrub in sharply drained, stony soil. This makes it very tolerant of drought. It likes full sun and does well on light soils, though it does well in sunshine in heavier soils too, here in Norwich: at Grapes Hill Community Garden, where I first grew it, in my friend Jo’s garden in north Norwich and even in my raised bed which has slightly clayey loam, in contrast to the native garden soil here, which is sandy. But it won’t like cold and wet.

There are various English names for the grass: Golden Oat Grass, Golden Oats, Giant Oat Grass, Spanish Oat Grass, Giant Feather Grass.

Stipa gigantea doesn’t like to be shaded or having other plants too close, but there are many good planting companions. Matthew Wilson suggests the purple flowers of Salvia ‘Mainacht’ and Verbena rigida, the steel-blue Eryngium x tripartitum and the evergreen foliage of  Euphorbia ‘Portuguese Velvet’, with its acid-green flowers. Our plant is growing with lavenders, Verbena bonariensis, Eryngium karvinskianus, Euphorbia characias and Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, all of which enjoy the same growing conditions. It goes beautifully with the blue flowers of Geranium ‘Rozanne’ in my friend Jo’s garden – the Geranium grows around the base of the plant in the summer but then dies back completely in the winter, so that the leaves of the Stipa aren’t shaded or swamped.

Stipa gigantea is also used to great effect at East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden (pictured below). If you haven’t already been there (or even if you have), it is well worth a visit.

Stipa gigantea at East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden