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.