Ever since Blooms of Bressingham began exhibiting a spectacular terracotta pot of Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola' at Chelsea years ago, and continued to do so year after year as the specimen grew more and more impressive, this has been a very popular grass. There were one or two others around, but ‘Aureola' got all the attention.
In more recent years a number of other varieties have appeared - there are now nine in the RHS Plant Finder - forms with different patterns of variegation, with reddish tints and with gold leaves. The latest to appear, this year, is ‘Stripe it Rich', the first with golden leaves which are striped in white.
‘Stripe it Rich' is as vigorous as other forms, making a clump about 25-30cm/10-12in high and twice as wide with fine flowers fluttering amongst and above the leaves in late summer and early autumn.
As with ‘Aureola', and indeed all the varieties of this indispensable grass, this is a lovely plant in a container and also as an accent in the shade garden. The bright gold leaves with their white stripes really light up shady areas, rippling in the breeze, and as Adrian Bloom used to make clear with his Chelsea display, treating it as a container specimen and allowing the plant to slow grow in size and impact is a good approach.
‘Stripe it Rich' is a sport of ‘All Gold' which arose amongst plants of ‘All Gold' which were being propagated in the laboratory by tissue culture at Terra Nova Nurseries, the prolific breeder of good new perennials in Oregon (no retail sales).
Hakonechloa macra ‘Stripe it Rich' is available from these four RHS Plant Finder nurseries.