Bamboo muhly underplanted with zexmenia
The darling of my garden right now is bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa ). Tactile, feathery, evergreen (a little more straw colored in winter), this clump-forming grass is reminiscent of bamboo but without the worries about invasiveness or extreme height. In my garden, in clay soil, it gets about 5 or 6 feet tall, and I’m growing this plant in full sun and in part shade. It is drought-tolerant, although it appreciates extra water; in fact, mine are growing like crazy after all the rain we’ve had.
It works wonderfully as a foil to spiny natives like agaves and sotols, and it would be a great accent or background plant in a Japanese garden. It can be pruned and shaped, which I do with the ones in my small front garden, but it looks best when allowed to keep its natural weeping form, like this one in the never-watered area behind the trampoline.

Native to southern Arizona and northern Mexico, it’s said to grow in zones 8-11 and is cold hardy to the lower 20s. For gardeners in the South and the Southwest, it’s a terrific addition to the garden.