A few years ago, I was fascinated to see a catalog listing for a new ornamental grass that I didn’t know, Calamagrostis ‘Cheju-Do’. This struck my eye because calamagrostis are great ornamental specimens, and in 1997, I had the opportunity to botanize Korea’s southern island, Cheju. We subsequently acquired a specimen, which prospered for us, but as it came into flower, we realized that it while it was a lovely grass, it wasn’t a calamagrostis.
As it turned out, this new grass was actually Arundinella hirta, an Asian native (Siberia south to Indonesia). Tracking it back further, this selection originated from a 1992 Goteborg Botanic Garden collection on Korea’s Cheju Island. For us, it has made an attractive small 18″ tall x 2.5′ wide clump, topped, starting in early October with narrow, upright small plumes of dark brown flowers. It grows well in both dry and slightly moist soils in full sun. One of the coolest things we discovered is that the dried foliage has a strong cat-nip like effect on our feline friends.