Ornamental grasses have a way of adding in a different element into the garden.
Their soft, wispy textures can soften up the landscape and they add a sense of movement to the garden. There is nothing like the rustling of blades on a warm and sunny summer day.
During the growing season, grasses are a very low-maintenance plant that requires little attention. In the spring, though, a little bit of effort is needed to keep your grasses healthy and thriving.
If you like your garden looking tidy over winter, chances are you cut back your ornamental grasses in the fall.
If you are like me, you like to leave any plants that offer special winter interest, so I wait until spring to cut back the grasses. Either early spring or fall are acceptable times to be pruning back them back.
All the new growth for this season comes from the ground itself, so it is best to remove all the previous season’s growth. If you have not yet cut them back, now is a great time to prune back the brown blades before the new growth begins to show at the base of the plant.
The stalks of the grass can be so dense that it makes cutting them back a challenge, so using secateurs or electric (or battery) hedging shears works best.
Cut back taller growing grasses, such as any varieties in the miscanthus and panicum family, to four to six inches from the ground. For shorter growing grasses such as blue fescue, hakonechloa grass, blood grass and dwarf fountain grasses, cut back to just two to three inches above the soil.
Ornamental grasses, like many other perennials, will need to be divided about every three to five years. You will know that they need to be divided when the centre of the clump starts to die out and all the growth is on the outer edges of the clump.
Before you start to divide the clump of grass, dig the entire clump out of the bed. If you try dividing by just pushing in the shovel into he clump while still in the ground, you cannot see how much root you are actually getting.
You will find that you have a bit of a battle to do so, especially with the taller grasses. The root system is quite tough to get through.
If you decide not to divide the clump when you see that the centre is dying out, the plant will continue to thin out and eventually die out completely.
Once the clump is sitting out on top of the soil or on a tarp, it will be easier for you to see where to cut down through the roots.
Cut apart the outer portions into as many pieces as desired and discard the center portion of the clump. The number of pieces will depend on the size of the clump.
Before you plant back into the same hole or are planning some of the new clumps into new areas, it is best to improve your soil.
Be sure to mix in some composted manure or leaf or mushroom compost in with some of your existing soil. At the bottom of the hole, add in some bonemeal. Bonemeal is high in phosphorus (the middle number) and will aid with root growth.
Set the newly divided plant into the hole, making sure that the top of the rootball will be at the same depth as it was before.
Do not plant it deeper into the soil than before. Fill in the planting hole with your soil/compost mix and water around the base of the plant.
Your grass is now set for another season.
Joanne Young is a Niagara-on-the-Lake garden expert and coach. See her website at joanneyoung.ca
The Niagara-on-the-Lake Horticultural Society is pleased to be hosting a series of Saturday morning gardening classes, available to the public. They will be facilitated by Joanne Young on Saturday mornings, and they will run until May 31 at the NOTL Community Centre. Join us for the classes that interest you. For all the seminar details and to pre-register for the classes, visit notlhortsociety.com/classes.
