Purple Lovegrass is a short warm season grass which is best planted in mass.  The effect is stunning when Eragrostis spectabilis comes into bloom in August and September.  The airy panicles are bright shades of reddish purple, making a showy carpet over sandy, dry and infertile soils.  In the fall the foliage takes on shades of reddish bronze.  This tough native provides good erosion control and a good choice for green roofs.  It is a good choice for roadside planting as it can handle infertile, road salt and polluted soils adjacent to the pavement.

Eragrostis spectabilis knows how to put on a show with its misty plumes of soft pinkish-purple inflorescences that appear almost cloud-like when grouped together. The tiny, individual seedheads that make up each inflorescence act as a textural backdrop to broader-leaved perennials and shrubs, and also make a lovely addition to fresh or dried cut flower arrangements. While this warm season grass is native to a large chunk of North America excluding most of the far West, it’s learned to adapt to urbanized conditions and can be used where road salt, compaction, or the general muck-and-mire of day-to-day human activities become burdensome to more sensitive plant species. Not purple lovegrass! This hardy selection is capable of thriving in some of the most adverse of conditions, such as rarely-maintained hellstrips, or along roadsides, driveways, or bordering curbside (and seaside!) gardens. In fact, Eragrostis spectabilis has found to be highly tolerant of saline solution in a 2019 study, showing only minimal foliar damage when exposed to an EC of 5.0 ds/m-1 – pretty spectacular when you consider the optimal EC reading for supporting healthy plants usually falls somewhere between 0.8-1.8 0 ds/m-1 and almost never exceeds 2.8 ds/m-1. Don’t let the chemistry jargon fool you – that’s an incredibly high salt tolerance! That being said, if Purple Lovegrass isn’t on your coastal planting list, it’s time to reconsider!

• Category: Grasses
• Hardiness Zone: 5
• Height: 24 Inches
• Spread: 30 Inches
• Bloom Color: Purple