Muhlenbergia wrightii, spike muhly, isn’t the most photogenic plant in the world, but it’s certainly a favorite of mine. (Could it be that I’m becoming more boring with every passing day?)

The combination of blue-gray leaves and–at first–leaden-colored flower spikes, later changing to silver-gray, is extremely attractive to my eyes.

It’s isn’t a water hog, either, being found in nature in xeric habitats and also more mesic ones.

I grew these from seed sown directly in the ground, which I now think is the best way; grasses grown in seed pots are difficult for me to keep moist all summer, and transplanting is usually a disaster. (It requires an excessive amount of coordination.)

Spring sowing is usually recommended for most grass seed, though of course that isn’t what happens in nature; the idea here is that spring sowing prevents loss from the inevitable mass consumption by birds, mice, etc. The only trouble with this is that most gardeners I know are so wildly excited in spring that a simple task like sowing some grass seed is likely to be forgotten, whereas bare ground in January just begs to have some gardening done in it.