A major prairie grass, Switchgrass is a handsome garden plant that lends a golden color to the autumn landscape. Panicum virgatum has an upright growth and produces a lovely cloud of airy seed heads in the fall. Easily grown in a variety of conditions, it tolerates …
Switchgrass is an important prairie grass and a handsome landscaping plant as well, lending a golden color to the autumn landscape. The strong upright growth produces a lovely cloud of airy seed heads in the fall. Easily grown in a variety of conditions, it tolerates both clay and sandy soils. It grows taller on fertile and clay soils, frequently reaching five or six feet. On dry sandy soils the height is more likely to be at the lower end of its range. A stand of Switchgrass creates valuable habitat, providing food and shelter for birds and other wildlife. Great for planting in meadows and naturalized landscapes, the rigid stems stand up well in winter.
The Delaware Skipper (Anatrytone logan), Arogos Skipper (Atrytone arogos), and the Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae) all use Switchgrass as a host plant.
Seeding Rates for a Solid Stand of Switchgrass • 2 Oz. per 1000 square feet • 5 Lb. per acre
Native plants can be grown outside of their native range in the appropriate growing conditions. This map shows the native range, as well as the introduced range, of this species.
Plant Shipping Rates: Plant orders of $50.00 and under, add $9.95 shipping charge. Plant orders over $50.00, add 18% of the total plant cost.
We ship plants in the spring, and in the fall, during our plant-shipping periods. Fall plant-shipping begins on September 11, 2023, and the last day to order plants for fall shipment is October 1, 2023.
During checkout, you will choose a Shipping Week for your plant delivery, from the dates that are available. The week that you choose will be included in your order confirmation email. When your plants have shipped you will receive another email that includes tracking information.
Should Switchgrass be sown in the fall, and what kind of stratification does it need?
Switchgrass can be sown directly, outdoors, in late fall or early winter. If you are sowing the grass seed outdoors in the fall or early winter, then the seed does not need any stratification process applied to it. The moist strafication will be acheived naturally.
When Switchgrass seed is propagated in a greenhouse (indoors), or direct sown outdoors in the spring, then it is necessary to make sure that the seed goes through a stratification period that mimics its natural winter cycle.
Switchgrass needs a moist stratifcation period of 30 days.
Is this a sod-forming or bunch-forming ecotype of switchgrass?
We have not performed any tests to determine the precise ecotype of our Switchgrass. However, the source of our switchgrass seed is local, from central Wisconsin.
Studies done in the 1950s identified two separate “types” of Switchgrass, one of which was determined to be hexaploid (the lowland strain) and another that was octoploid (the upland strain). The ploidy refers to the number of sets of chromosomes the plants possess, 6 and 8, respectively. We would probably need to perform a DNA test to make a true determination.
I'm sorry, but we are not able to offer a definitive answer your question.
What is the seeding rate for a solid stand of Switchgrass?
The seeding rate for Switchgrass, for a solid stand (of a single species), is: • 2 oz. per 1000 sq. ft., or • 5 lb. per acre.
When seeding two or more grasses together, divide the seeding rate for each species by the number of species to be planted. When seeding grasses and flowers together, use one-half to two-thirds of the recommended grass seeding rate, depending upon your desired balance of flowers to grasses.
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