It's probably a sign of rock garden dotage, or some sort of disease but I'm getting into graminoids. When you mention rock gardens and grasses most of us groan at the invasion of some section of the rock garden by bluegrass or some other noxious pest. But alpine nature is full of grasses. My old Czech buddy, long gone now, Vaclav Plestil shared me love of grasses. I have been cautiously introducing quite a few grasses and graminoids into more and more of my rock garden and even troughs and the results have always been fun. This picture shows one of the greatest "accidents" I blogged about elsewhere (http://prairiebreak.blogspot.com/2010/06/best-design-is-accidental.html): as I have been sorting the pix I took this past year, I stumbled on another picture of this plant. I wonder if it would have photographed if I'd seen it with the sunbeam at its feet shining dead on! Wow! Oh well...I can try next year. This is Melica ciliata, probably apt to be a weed in the rock garden unless Serendipity intercedes and plants it in the perfect spot like here...
