Scientific name: Muhlenbergia schreberi

A delicate and wispy native grass that is most hated by all lawn lovers. However, if you are interested in naturalizing your property, this grass can be your best friend. It’s a very prolific spreader, and not easy to kill by accident… Actually, you’ll have a hard time killing it on purpose. It will work to your advantage by crowding out plants you don’t want (such as false strawberry, and purple dead nettle). Your taller flowers will grow fine over top of the nimblewill (which only gets to be about 24 inches tall). The stems and leaves are very fine and flop over like hair if it gets too tall. In the fall it wilts in bundles and looks like waves of purplish deep green before drying out. If you leave it in the spring it acts as a mulch and also provides plenty of shelter and nest material for ground birds.

In the image below you can see we left the leaves. If you desire a cleaner look, you can rake the leaves.