Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) is a beautiful North American native grass with a size and behavior that suits it to smaller garden spaces. This clumping warm-season ornamental grass provides fine texture with its foliage and a flash of late-season interest with its fall color and airy seed heads. Prairie dropseed does not spread, outgrow its space or require dividing the way some grasses do. True to its name, it drops seeds in the fall, which ground-feeding birds can enjoy. Planted in multiples, prairie dropseed can be used as a base layer in two kinds of naturalistic planting design: matrix planting and green, or living, mulch.
Common name: Prairie dropseed
Botanical name: Sporobolus heterolepis
Exposure: Full sun
Flowers: Fragrant tan panicles bloom on multiple tall, airy stalks in late summer. Seeds ripen in fall, with the spent seed heads providing additional interest through winter.
Foliage: The grass foliage remains a bright green through summer, then changes to orange and gold in fall.
Size and habit: This grass matures to two feet tall and wide in leaf, with its flower stalks doubling its height when they appear. Several named selections have been introduced in recent years, including 'Tara', which matures to just one foot tall in foliage, and 'Gone With the Wind'.
Origin: Sporobolus heterolepis is native to the central United States and Canada, where it grows in open, sunny positions.
How to grow it: Plant prairie dropseed in full sun and well-drained soil. This is a warm-season grass, meaning that steady growth occurs once temperatures rise in later spring.
This grass species can be slow to get established, with most of its growth happening below the soil for the first few years. This strong root system serves to make it a long-lived garden plant that can resist drought. Do provide supplemental water during any dry spells in its first season or two, as it's getting established. (The fibrous root system also means prairie dropseed stays in place; spreading grasses do so by rhizomatous roots.)
Prairie dropseed will maintain its mature size and good health without needing to be divided. (It does not form the "donut hole" common among some ornamental grasses.) For maintenance, it just needs its spent foliage and seed heads trimmed back to the ground in late winter. This plant is a perennial grass for USDA Zones 3 through 9.
Image credits, top to bottom: Courtesy of Walters Gardens; By cultivar413/CC BY-SA 2.0
