Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola'
Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ · a golden variegated hakone grass
A gold, green-striped forest grass whose leaves all arch the same way like a golden waterfall, brightening shade, slopes, rock walls and pots, and deer avoid it. Its gold is strongest in part shade and turns lime in deep shade. Give it rich, steadily moist soil, since the leaves scorch in heat if it dries out.
- Mature size
- 1.5 × 1.5 ft
- 0.4 × 0.4 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 5a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Part shade to full shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola' at its mature size
A mature Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola' grows to about 1.5 ft tall and 1.5 ft wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: Missouri Botanical Garden.
Through the year
What Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola' looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Dormant · Dec–Feb
Dried arching tan-copper leaves, partly collapsed.
Below ground · Mar–Apr
Cut back; new shoots barely out of the ground.
In leaf · May–Oct
Cascading mound of arching golden-yellow leaves with a thin green stripe.
Fall · Nov
Leaves still mostly gold, with a slight pink-copper flush on about a third of the blade tips; a living grass, not brown or dry.
Photos
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Growing Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola'
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest.
- Growth rate
- Slow
- Good for
- Specimen, shade garden, slopes, and deer resistant
- Leaves
- Dies back in winter
- Native to
- Japan
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola', that’s about 1.5 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola' in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other hakone grasses
Golden Hakone Grass 'Aureola'
Japanese Forest GrassAll drawn to the same scale.