plant named ‘October Sky’

Latin botanical classification:(L.).

Variety denomination: ‘October Sky’.

The first offer for sale anywhere in the world was to Chad Walters by Walters Gardens, Inc. on Sep. 23, 2024. Walters Gardens, Inc. obtained the plant and all information relating thereto from the inventor. No plants of‘October Sky’ have been sold or disclosed in this country or anywhere in the world more than one year prior to the filing date of this application, and any sale or disclosure within one year was either derived directly or indirectly from the inventor.

‘October Sky’, hereinafter also referred to just by the cultivar name ‘October Sky’ and the “new plant” is a new and distinct cultivar of Switch Grass.

The new plant originated from a cross of ‘Apache Rose’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 29,142 as the female parent and ‘Northwind’ (not patented) as the male parent at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Michigan in the late summer of 2014. The seed was collected in the autumn of 2014 and sown the following spring. The individual seedling was initially selected from among many for further observation in the summer and fall of 2016 at which time it was assigned the breeder code 14-5-9 before giving the new plant a cultivar name.

The new plant has been successfully asexually propagated by division since late fall of 2018 at the same wholesale perennial plant nursery in Zeeland, MI, and found to produce stable and identical plants that maintain the unique characteristics of the original plant. The plant is stable and reproduces true-to-type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.

‘October Sky’ differs from the female parent, ‘Apache Rose’, in that the new plant is taller, with tighter denser habit, and the foliage is more bluish and more cascading toward the leaf tips. ‘Northwind’ has a larger taller habit and has foliage with more green coloration and without purplish-red tinting.

The nearest comparison varieties known to the inventor are: ‘Cape Breeze’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 24,895, ‘Cheyenne Sky’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 23,209, ‘Prairie Fire’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,367, ‘RR1’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 17,944, and ‘Shenandoah’ (not patented).

‘Cape Breeze’ has significantly shorter and more compact and the foliage is not as blue-green in the summer. ‘Cheyenne Sky’ has a significantly shorter habit and more upright foliage that becomes concord purple earlier in the summer. ‘Prairie Fire’ is significantly shorter with more upright leaves and the foliage develops a deep wine color. ‘RR1’ has a shorter habit and the leaves color up earlier in the season to a purple-red. ‘Shenandoah’ has a shorter and more arching in habit, the culms are looser and not as densely arranged, and the foliage develops a red-purple color earlier in the season.

Table 1 below includes comparisons of othercultivars known to the inventor:

The following traits of‘October Sky’ in combination have been repeatedly observed in multiple generations of asexually propagated plants and distinguish the new plant from all other Switch Grass plants known to the inventor:

The following descriptions and color references are based on the 2015 edition of The Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart except where common dictionary terms are used. The new plant, ‘October Sky’, has not been observed in all possible environments. The phenotype may vary slightly with different environmental conditions, such as temperature, light, fertility, moisture, and maturity levels, but without any change in the genotype. The following observations and descriptions are of a six-year-old plant in a loamy-sand trial garden of a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Michigan, USA, grown in full sun with supplemental water and fertilizer as needed.