Trial: Annual

Years Trialed:2006

Good Qualities

Very gorgeous red seed heads (7); Great fresh or dried (4); Lovely flowing pendulous stems; Quite showy; Regrowth strong, easy to sow and transplant; Rubysilk Teffgrass makes a wonderful addition to bouquets adding a graceful appearance, very productive, great in bouquets, straight bunches; Red florets are a great improvement to Eragrostis, easy to use as a filler in autumn arrangements, glowing colour – like satin embroidery threads, just beautiful! Dries true to colour and holds the seeds so it isn’t messy; Aptly named – this grass was a ruddy-red color and silky to the touch, graceful arching, pretty – especially hanging over edge of vase, long season of usefulness; Beautiful crop, very abundant, dried well if harvested early enough; Very fine, hope to clear cut and straight bunch, too fine to be useful in bouquets; 2nd crop after 1st cutting nice red for a grass; The one time I brought it to the market people noticed its reddish hue, they thought it was interesting, but went on to choose something else; Rapid bloom; Gave an airy quality of movement to bouquets – the color was very pleasing for a grass – it did come back for a second flush in the fall; Used it in floral arrangements! Looked great!; Pretty seed head, looked nice in bouquets; Unusual; In a mixed bouquet ‘Rubysilk’ adds a very fine, lacy quality, nice subtle red color; Nice form, makes an unusual filler; Its beautiful and I love it but my customers don’t, they will buy Johnson grass before the Rubysilk; I wish I had planted it later for a more autumn look, we didn’t use it in the summer because we had much brighter colors and it didn’t show up in the bouquets – We would like to try it again later, I am sure we could have harvested many more stems, it was very productive; Sowed seed in 72’s, harvested whole plant, made 1 bunch, wholesalers loved it, able to have two cuttings on crop; Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Graceful, I want to grow the grass every year.

Problems

Lodging and more lodging (4); None (2); Since I had never grown anything like this before, I planted it too close together, better results were obtained with plants I placed in the flower garden in front of the house with more spacing, next year I would provide netting for support and greater spacing, after lodging there were fewer useful stems, tedious to pick; Perhaps, if this is like other Eragrostis, we will find many more self-seeded next year?; Fell over in an early summer wind/rainstorm, was difficult to harvest after that, would grow with support in the future; Very labor intensive to harvest, flower very small; Pretty long lasting, soft good color, too much handling but costumer liked it; Didn’t get any germination on this, but saw it at Ralph’s and would grow again, next time I’d also seed into plugs and transplant; The water turned sour and smelly in 24 hours if a large bunch is used in bouquets during warm weather, difficult to use in mixed bouquet, slow to harvest since stems are so thin, needs support or will fall over; Wispy, it takes too many stems to make a sizeable bunch; Heads too small, needed netting to maintain erect plants; Hard at first to know how to cut it and how to use it in bouquets, a little bit goes a long way as I would not plant as many plants next year, we cut it by grabbing a clump and cutting at the base of the plant; Too fine – had to use many stems in bouquets; Hard to cut and clean, we cut large handfuls to sell, wasn’t a great seller; Specialty uses; Challenging to clean up later, foliage and some lodging; Stems are thin which makes it difficult for cutting and designing, we prefer to sell native grasses for the height and stem size; We can’t seem to keep it from falling over – even with netting – I don’t know if we are planting it too close which is making it weak; This grass really turns a bouquet into a stunning bouquet, both my customers and I missed that special look.

Similar Cultivars

Not that I grow; No; Similar to cultivated teff varieties.

Postharvest

Clean, cold water; Easy to handle/needs little special care; Tested with drop of bleach in water, after two weeks as beautiful as time of cutting,

Comments

Too wispy for most of my customers, a little more popular in October; Teffgrass was very popular, sold it in bouquets, bunches, and as plants in 5 inch pots; Successfully used as filler in containers; Please nominate this for cut flower of the year- we loved it!; Dogs love it, my dogs took bites before they flowered and humorous dogs at the market took swipes at it – Don’t understand the attraction although my dogs like millet and broom corn leaves too; The best looking annual grass we have grown; Our new kitten thought it the best cat toy ever! Maybe it has a future alongside catnip and wheatgrass for pet owners; We also dried some – alone its not so pleasing but mixed with other grasses, larkspur, yarrow (we did a dried bouquet like this) it gave that same sense of movement as it did used fresh; Great color and great filler for arrangements! So easy to grow!; I won’t grow it again if my customers won’t buy it; After first flush of blooms, the plants were cut back to ground, leveled, another flush of blooms within approximately 3 weeks.

Trial Data

Supplier

Cramers’ Posie Patch
116 Trail Road North
Elizabethtown, PA 17022