EN
The research was conducted during the years 1995-97 on a dumping ground of hard coal mine PIAST in New Bieruń. Eight species and cultivars of ornamental flower - bed grasses were cultivated on small fields, covered with a very poor and barren substrate, consisting of the dumping mine ground with very bad physical characteristics. Each year the reaction of individual grass species cultivated in the hard growing conditions were described and the measurements of characteristics of growing plants were performed. After three years of cultivation, the authors has stated that the growth of plants depended primarily on the characteristics of the species, cultivars and fertilisation. Generally, a poorer growth was observed in the control treatment (not fertilised), and the obtained results indicate on the need of enriching the barren substrate of the dumping ground. The decorative values of grasses with coloured leafage were particularly highly evaluated and this refered to: Elymus arenarius 'Glaucus', Festuca cinerea 'Azurit', Helictotrichon sempervirens, Glyceria maxima 'Variegata' and Phalaris arundinacea 'Picta'. The compared species and cultivars of omamental grasses grown on the dumping ground have not reached the full decorative values as they usually do in favourable growing conditions in parks and gardens. Nevertheless, some fragments of the dumping ground planted with ornamental grasses could be regarded in the vegetation period of each year as an aesthetic ones and giving a perspective chance of being grown on such mining damps.