My 89-Year-Old Neighbour Gave Me Some Grass!

No, not the type you smoke... Sheesh...what are you people thinking? I’m talking about the type you plant in the garden. The perennial type. The non-smoking type. Capiche?

Okay, here’s what happened.

Awhile back, I wrote about my amazing 89-year-old neighbour who continues to putter around the garden despite her age. And I wrote about the six Iris pallida ‘Aureo Variegata’ plants that she gave me, which made me want to start dancing in her driveway.

Well.

A few days ago, she called me over again and gave me an Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’ garden baby, commonly-known as Japanese Blood Grass. And this too made me want to do the happy gardener’s dance in her driveway. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to scare her. Or change her opinion of me, which is that I’m a nice, normal, well-balanced individual. So I thanked her instead. Again and again. (And did the happy gardener's dance in my own backyard, convinced that no one can see me.)

Then I planted the baby plant in my garden.



Isn’t it cute? It doesn’t look like very much right now being so small and all, but it will grow to be big and beautiful.

Apparently, on one website I landed on, this grass is described as an ‘unusual’ and ‘dramatic’ grass, and that the red tips will become more and more intense as the summer heads into fall. Sounds good to me. And the fact that it was free is even better.

Don’t you love having neighbours that share their garden treasures? I sure do.