Pink Muhly Grass
Botanical name: Muhlenbergia capillaris
Common names: Pink Muhly Grass, Hair-awn Muhly Grass
Billowing clouds of rosy-pink flowers transform the fall landscape with spectacular color and movement.
Quick Care
- Light: Full sun for the best flowering
- Water: Water regularly until established; drought tolerant afterward
- Mature size: 3–4 feet tall and approximately 3 feet wide
- Soil: Adaptable but requires good drainage
- Growth rate: Moderate; forms a tidy clump
- Hardiness: USDA Zones 5–11
- Pet safety: Not intended for consumption; discourage pets from chewing the foliage
Description
Pink Muhly Grass is a North American native ornamental grass known for its extraordinary fall flower display. For most of the growing season, it forms a neat mound of slender, medium-green foliage. Beginning in early fall, airy pink flower panicles rise above the leaves and create the appearance of a soft pink cloud floating over the plant.
The flowers gradually fade to tan and provide texture and movement well into winter. Pink Muhly Grass is especially dramatic when backlit by morning or late-afternoon sunlight.
Why You’ll Love It
- Produces masses of airy pink flowers in fall
- Tolerates heat, humidity and drought once established
- Maintains an attractive, upright clumping habit
- Requires very little routine maintenance
- Resistant to deer and most serious pests
- Native grass suitable for naturalistic landscapes
- Provides winter texture when the seed heads are left standing
Best Uses
Pink Muhly Grass is an excellent choice for:
- Mass plantings and sweeping landscape borders
- Perennial and mixed shrub beds
- Sunny slopes and erosion-prone areas
- Native and wildlife gardens
- Driveway and walkway borders
- Commercial landscapes and entrance plantings
- Large containers with excellent drainage
Plant in groups of three or more for the strongest visual impact. It pairs beautifully with asters, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, sedums and evergreen shrubs.
Planting & Care
Plant Pink Muhly Grass in full sun for the densest growth and heaviest flowering. It will tolerate light shade, but too much shade can produce weak, floppy growth and fewer flowers.
Choose a location with well-drained soil. Pink Muhly Grass adapts to sandy, rocky and clay-based soils but does not perform well when its crown remains constantly wet. In heavy soil, plant slightly above the surrounding grade to improve drainage.
Space plants approximately 30–36 inches apart. Water deeply and regularly during the first growing season. Once established, the deep root system provides excellent drought tolerance.
Pink Muhly Grass grows well in lean soil and normally requires little fertilizer. Excessive nitrogen can cause soft growth, flopping and reduced flowering.
Leave the dried foliage and seed heads standing through winter for texture and wildlife cover. Cut the plant back to approximately 6–10 inches above the ground in late winter before new spring growth begins. Avoid cutting into fresh green shoots.
Franklin Brothers’ Central NC Advice
Pink Muhly Grass is well suited to the heat, humidity and clay soils of the Central North Carolina Piedmont. The two most important requirements are full sun and good drainage.
Our heavy soils should be loosened across a wide planting area rather than amended only inside a narrow planting hole. Set the crown slightly above the surrounding soil level, especially in low areas where winter moisture may collect.
In the Henderson area, the pink flower clouds usually develop from September into October. For the most dramatic display, plant several together where the setting or afternoon sun can shine through the flowers.
Water new plants consistently during their first summer. Once established, Pink Muhly Grass handles hot, dry weather with very little attention.
Good to Know
Pink Muhly Grass is a warm-season ornamental grass. It begins growing after the soil warms in spring, so do not assume a dormant plant is dead if it is slow to emerge.
The flowers are most impressive when plants receive abundant sunlight and are not overfertilized. Individual plants are attractive, but groups of three, five or more create the signature pink-cloud effect.
Pink Muhly Grass grows as a clump rather than spreading aggressively by underground runners. It is long-lived and generally has few serious insect or disease problems.