Purple Grasses

Purple Fountain Grass

• Purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum "Rubrum") is prized for its red foliage and showy pinkish or coppery flowers. Purple fountain grass grows 3 to 4 feet tall with a foot-long flower atop a 3-foot-tall flower stalk. This grass is an annual in cooler climates, but is a mildly invasive perennial in warm regions.

Purple Majesty Millet

• Purple Majesty millet (Pennisetum glaucum "Purple Majesty") is an annual grass that can reach a height of 4 feet. this grass features burgundy-purple foliage and bottlebrush flower stalks that make it ideal for use in beds, in containers or as a cut flower.

Switchgrass

• Multiple cultivars of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) such as "Shenandoah" and "Rotstrahlbusch" are grown for their purple or purplish coloration. Shenandoah, for example, features deep green, purple-tipped leaves in summer that mature into a burgundy-purple in autumn. This switchgrass cultivar grows 3 to 4 feet high and has reddish-pink flowers.

Purple Muhly Grass

• Muhly grass, known scientifically as Muhlenbergia capillaris, is most prized for its delicate, wispy, pinkish-purple inflorescence. This perennial grass has a strongly clumping habit and grows about 3 feet high with the flower composing up to half of the total height. Foliage is green but turns coppery in the fall.

Purple Love Grass

• Purple love grass, also known as tumble grass and scientifically referred to as Eragrostis spectablis, is a clump-forming grass with fine-textured green foliage that turns reddish in the fall. Flowers appear on this grass from June through August and are reddish-purple. Purple love grass grows 2 to 3 feet tall and is drought tolerant, but will not perform well in wet or shaded locations.