Feather grass

Needs full sun and good drainage to thrive.

Very drought-tolerant once established; dislikes winter wet far more than it dislikes cold.

Free-draining, poor-to-average soil. Struggles and often rots in heavy, wet clay over winter — improve drainage before planting if in doubt.

Never cut back hard. Comb through the clump with gloved fingers in spring to pull out dead, brown blades — this genus does not reshoot reliably from a hard cut and can be killed outright by one.

No feeding. These are dry-meadow grasses and a fertile soil gives lax, floppy growth with far less of the fine, moving texture they are grown for.

Divide in spring, or lift the self-sown seedlings that appear round the parent — these seed themselves generously, sometimes to the point of nuisance, so free plants are rarely in short supply.

Needs full sun for strong, upright flower stems.

Regular watering while young; drought-tolerant once well established.

Free-draining soil; tolerates poor or dry soil well once established, and actually flowers more sturdily in lean conditions.

Comb and tidy the evergreen basal foliage in spring rather than cutting it hard back. Cut out the previous year's old flower stems individually at the base, usually in late winter, once they've lost their appeal.

A light feed at the spring cut-back if the soil is poor, and nothing otherwise. The tall flowering stems are the feature here, and they stand up better on a lean soil.

Divide in mid-spring once new growth is clearly moving, never in autumn — a division made into cold wet soil usually rots before it roots.