Morning Light miscanthus sinensis is an easy one to grow in any full-sun yard because it tolerates wind, saltwater, weather swings and variable soil conditions. Leave it in the garden until late winter, and then cut it back to the ground before new growth begins in warmer weather. Otherwise, it needs nothing but your admiration.

Here are three favorite native grasses:

Æ Yellow Indian grass, or Sorghastrum nutans. Growing 2 to 8 feet tall, this grass is topped by a large, plume-like, golden-brown seed head, the grass is attractive in the fall when the flowers produce dangling yellow stamens. The leaves are slender and blue-green, turning orange-yellow to purple.

Æ Purple muhly grass, or Muhlenbergia capillaris. For many months, the thin spiky blades add interesting contrast to broad-leaved blooming perennials and annuals and evergreen shrubs. In early fall, the seedheads begin to form and by the end of September, the tip of each blossoms into a filmy purple haze.

Æ Purpletop, or Tridens flavus. This slender perennial grows to 4 feet tall, the upper stem, branches and spikelets covered with a waxy, greasy substance. The large purple seeds are widely spaced on thin panicle-branches. Purpletop is the larval host to four species of butterflies.