This is often sold in my area with incorrect zone information. I have purchased it twice where the tag said zone 5 or 6. It's an (expensive) annual for me and the zone 9 information here is undoubtedly accurate.

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Here in the latitudes of the northern USA, we grow this Tender Fountaingrass and its red cultivar as an annual flower. It is commonly sold in garden centers and nurseries of the Midwestern & Eastern US as an annual plant. This 'Rubrum' (meaning red in Latin) is the most common cultivar. There are some newer cultivars with other shades of reddish being offered also. The regular green mother species is hard to find, but I grew some from seed in the 1990's and used them in that decade. I have dug up this Tender Fountaingrass, whether red or green, in the fall before frost and stored it in a small greenhouse over the winter to divide and replant the next growing season. It is so easy to grow in full sunshine and average soil and it is soft to touch. The species is native to eastern Africa where it is a perennial in the tropics. In the really warm parts of the American Southwest it can escape cultivation and become invasive as far as I have heard. (By the way, I was taken by surprise today to see that the generic name was changed from the old Pennisetum to Cenchrus.)

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