Switchgrass (Panicum virga) is a native, perennial, warm-season ornamental grass that reaches 3-4 feet with flower plumes up to 7 feet tall in any soil. Its clump can spread slowly through creeping rhizomes and if birds don’t eat all its seeds, it will self-sow. Switchgrass is attractive year-round with blue-green foliage that turns yellow in fall and reddish-purple seedheads that remain attractive well into winter. It would be kept well-watered until it is established after which it tolerates drought or standing water. It is deer resistant.

Switchgrass provides habitat and nesting material for many small vertebrates, is an essential host to the common wood-nymph, Delaware skipper and for most banded skippers and satyrs, and also provides seed for songbirds and small mammals in the winter.