Cutting Back Grasses - Part 5

A list of the cool season grasses, the ones to cut back first:

• Achnatherum - Spear grass
• Arrhenatherum - Bulbous oat grass
• Calamagrostis - Reed grass
• Chasmanthium - Northern sea oats
• Deschampsia - Tufted hair grass
• Elymus
• Festuca - Fescue
• Koeleria
• Molinia - Moor grass
• Phalaris - Ribbon grass
• Poa - Meadow grass
• Scirpus - Bulrush
• Sesleria - Moor grass
• Stipa - Feather (reed) grass

See Cutting Back Grasses - Part One for more info.

Cutting Back Ornamental Grasses - Part 4

Warm season grasses will not be growing for awhile yet, at least not in most of North America. They require warm soil before they will show signs of life. More on this subject later.

So there isn't the same rush to get the tops trimmed off of these warm season grasses:

• Andropogon - Big bluestem
• Bouteloua - Blue grama
• Imperata - Japanese blood grass
• Miscanthus - Maiden grass
• Panicum - Switch grass
• Pennisetum - Fountain grass
• Saccharum - Hardy pampas grass
• Schizachyrium - Little bluestem
• Sorghastrum - Indian grass
• Sporobolus

All those listed above, except for Miscanthus and Saccharum, are probably easiest dealt with by using a bread knife, as mentioned in Cutting Back Grasses - Part 1. Cut them down to 3-4" above the crown.

I suggest that if the stems of Miscanthus and Saccharum are dry, that it can be quite easy to break them off. One spring when my back was sore, I pushed over a couple of stalks at a time with my foot, planted my left foot on the stalk to hold it down, about a foot from the plant's crown. With my right foot (and a fairly hard-toed shoe or boot) I kicked at the base of the stalk until it separated. This was surprisingly easy to do.

As mentioned on our website, the heavier grasses can be cut back with a hedge trimmer or a weed eater-type machine, using a blade rather than the nylon line.

Cutting Back Grasses - Part 3

There are a few cool season grasses that are evergreen:

• Helictotrichon - Blue oat grass - just comb through with your fingers to remove the dead leaves
• Luzula - evergreen here, but if the tips look bad you can hold them straight up and give them a hair cut
• Sesleria - evergreen for me, but does have some dead leaves in it, so I gave mine a haircut this year
• Carex* - technically not a grass, but looks like one.
• C. muskingumensis - don't be tempted to leave any green that might be showing. Cut down right back so that you have a sturdy plant when it starts to grow
• C. flagellifera - I know it looks dead, but if the leaves don't pull out easily, just leave them be, because they are alive
• C. caryophyllea - evergreen for me, or nearly so. I trim only if it looks bad. 
• Juncus - evergreen for me, but depending on whether or not it looks ratty, I do or do not cut it back.

*Carex is a sedge. Jim wants everyone to know that he nearly killed some years ago, by cutting back too close to the crown. (Actually, its me who wants everyone to know that Jim is just as capable of killing plants as we are!). He did the same with Deschampsia.

So a crewcut is not necessary. Just give them a trim, as the new growth will soon hide any of the leftover dead foliage.

Cutting Back Grasses - Part 2

I just got my first grass cut of the season. I should know better. After using bare hands to comb through the Helictotrichon (Blue oat grass) with no problem, I was cutting down a Miscanthus and must have been over-confident. I had a sturdy glove in my left hand, and the pruner in my glove-less right. That was where I made my mistake. Sure enough, one dried blade jumped out and got me.

So please learn from my mistake(s). Wear long sleeves and gloves when working around Miscanthus.

A tip regarding cutting back Miscanthus is to tie a couple of bungee cords around it before you start to cut. You want to keep all the stalks and leaves in a tight bundle. This makes it much easier to get rid of the mess later.....and a mess there will certainly be if you don't!

Cutting Back Ornamental Grasses - Part 1

We are about a month ahead this year. The cool season grasses are already growing. So that meant that as soon as the Olympics were over I had to get outside and start cutting off the dead grass before I would be cutting off the tips of new growth.

The hand pruners were closest so I grabbed them. As I was working away I kept asking myself "Last year, didn't I discover something that was better than these things?" Once I developed a blister I knew I had to change tools.

So I grabbed a sickle. It was better, but I am quite sure it wasn't my "discovery" from last year. Then the light bulb went on. I am quite sure I used a saw! A pruning saw (has a curved blade). It was still too rough so it occurred to me that a knife with a finer serration would work even better.

So I grabbed our lowest-quality bread knife, and it was GREAT. It had a coarse serration. It helps if the weather is warm enough to work with bare hands, as its really hard to hold a bread knife handle if wearing large gloves!

My lengthy hedges of C. Karl Foerster and Overdam were done in no time! It also works very well for Deschampsia, Pennisetum, and all grasses with soft leaves. It does not work well for the heavy stalks of Miscanthus or Saccharum.

Check thrift stores for old bread knives. By the way, it also works particularly well for cutting off the soft wet leaves of Siberian iris, which doesn't respond well to any other method of removal that I have discovered.