Planting fountain grass

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Today is March 6th and I am planting fountain grass here in the Phoenix, Arizona area. There are many plants that should only be purchased at specialty nurseries, and carefully selected. But fountain grass is not one of them! In fact, I like to give it the "toughness test" by finding it at a Home Depot, mostly neglected. They always look a little ratty up close, but that's what's they're supposed to look like.

This planting area is what I have called "the fires of hell" for a long time. This is no place for a delicate plant, and maintenance should be minimal. Fountain grass is perfect for this. There's a little shade here in the winter, but by summer it will be one of the hottest and driest places in the garden.

Fountain grass is a typical "background plant", which is what I want here for The Outback. It is very tough, does well in poor soil, needs practically no care, but it does need water. And that's the trick. Before you plant fountain grass, you need to do some water engineering.

The whole point of doing this is to make it invisible, so I took some photos to show you what's "behind the scenes". The plant is watered through a drip system with "spaghetti tubing". Doing that is what has taken me so long today. Putting the plant in the hole will be the easy part. Well, digging the hole isn't that easy! Still working on that.

When it's planted, you won't see any of the watering system, including the dripper head. But without it, the plant would die. It's invisible, but important!

The Outback, the southeastern part of The Tropical Paradise

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