Sorghastrum nutans Sioux Blue

Sorghastrum nutans Sioux Blue is a variety of false sorghum that distinguishes itself from the species with its more upright habit and beautiful blue foliage adorned with metallic highlights, turning yellow-orange in autumn. This perennial grass also has magnificent flowers which fade into brown and feathery spikes covered in brilliant gold. It remains beautiful and charming until the heart of winter. It is robust despite difficult conditions and cold weather, anchoring its crown among rocks or plunging into muddy waters, it will need full sun to reveal its splendour.

Sorghastrum nutans is a non-suckering plant of the poaceae family, endemic to the high plains of North America, but also present from southern Manitoba in Canada to Texas. Vigorous, accustomed to fierce competition with other plants and well-adapted to difficult conditions, it withstands cold and drought and tolerates poor soil. The 'Sioux Blue' variety forms an upright tuft, 1.20 m (4ft) tall when in bloom, with a width of 30 cm (12in), slowly extending to form a very upright, graceful shape. It is composed of a basal rosette of flexible, linear, bluish leaves, and erect stems that bear slender inflorescences in summer. These narrow clusters, 15 to 35 cm (6 to 14in) long, carry slender spikelets with many small brown flowers and yellow stamens, ripening in autumn to a golden and shiny hue, then turning grey. It will self-seed in good conditions.

Sorghastrum nutans Sioux Blue maintains its upright habit and colourful foliage until the heart of winter, remaining highly decorative in the garden. It withstands anything, so is very useful in ornamental dry gardens or inhospitable, clayey and waterlogged or poor or sandy soil. It pairs well with hyssops, catmints, and wormwoods. To accentuate its height it can be combined with hybrid mulleins or hollyhocks, or, to play with contrasting forms, it can be paired with prostrate and easy-to-grow plants like Juniperus x pfitzeriana 'Old Gold', Rubus tricolor, or Microbiota decussata. A beautiful natural bed, reminiscent of vast wild spaces, can be created by combining it with three wonderful grasses known as Andropogon gerardii, Panicum virgatum Squaw, and Schizachyrium scoparium, adorned with a few clumps of Helianthus and Echinaceas.