Posts Tagged: Ornamental grasses
Getting Ready for Winter's Pruning: Ornamental Grasses and Japanese Maples
Home Gardening Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa Clunty
Client's Request: I've got quite a few ornamental grasses and several Japanese Maples. I know I'm supposed to prune them sometime this winter, but I'm getting confusing recommendations on when and how to do it. Would you please provide some guidance and/or references I could use to properly prune them this winter.
HGCC's Help Desk Response: Thank you for contacting UC Master Gardeners with you question and request.
You asked about pruning your grasses and Japanese maples. Our UC information indicates that February is a good time to prune both of these plants.
epending upon whether your grasses are evergreen or winter dormant, you may want to wait until they have brown foliage before pruning. For evergreen grasses, you can rake out the dead stuff and thatch build-up. If these get too big, you can cut them back every couple of years.
Here are two UC Master Gardener websites with good information about ornamental grasses and pruning:
http://sacmg.ucanr.edu/files/117290.pdf
http://sonomamg.ucanr.edu/2010_Feature_Articles/Pruning_Ornamental_Grasses/
I hope this is helpful, and good luck with your gardening! Please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Help Desk of the UC Master Garden Program of Contra Costa County (SMW)
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Ornamental Grasses: Part 2
Last time I extolled the virtues of ornamental grasses for the garden. They exhibit...
Pop Goes the Garden
It’s like a rainbow of colors out there! As I look out my kitchen window, it seems overnight there was a color riot in the backyard! I have a lot of plants that flower from spring until fall, so I really enjoy the garden for those months of the year. In bloom right now are sweet peas, borage, ceanothus (Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’), a variety of sages, marguerites, daffodils, Lady Banks Rose, weeping butterfly bush-that’s just to name a few!
The benefit to having such hues in the garden is the wildlife it attracts. I see bees, birds, spiders, and cats playing in the jewel tones.
Just the other day, I was having a look at the backyard with a critical eye. I decided that I need to add more colorful foliage and movement to the yard. I plan on adding ornamental grasses and bronzed, variegated or other-than-green plants to my yard. Granted, the flowers are colorful, but the majority of the yard is just green foliage when the flowers are gone.
In the next few weeks I am going to Annie’s Annuals in Richmond and also a UC Davis Arboretum Invitational for Master Gardeners. I hope to find the plants I am looking for that will spice up the yard for the 'plain green' times of the year.
Argyanthemum 'Lemon Sugar' (photos by Jennifer Baumbach)
A honey bee on Ceanothus 'Dark Star'.
Salvia 'Cabrillo Sunset'
Flannel Bush (Fremontodendron spp.)
The BIG Chop
On Groundhog Day — Feb. 2 — Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, ushering in six more weeks of winter. Solanoans hadn’t seen winter YET, save for two days of rain in January. And, as if to prove Phil totally wrong, Feb. 2 in Vacaville was particularly stunning: About 70 degrees in the sun, thin clouds blowing by in a light north wind.
It was the perfect day to start the Big Chop.
John Greenlee, the grasses guru, suggests an annual buzz cut — he calls it “the Big Chop” — for most ornamental grasses. The grasses in my yard are winter dormant, and by the time Feb. 2 rolled around, were looking downright tatty. In fact, a good many of the plants in my yard look pretty used up by late winter. So I take Greenlee’s advice, and do a major trim on not only the grasses but also the Western natives (such as Copper Canyon daisy, Tagetes lemmonii), herbaceous choices (such as threadleaf coreopsis, Coreopsis verticillata) and Mediterranean plants (like Jerusalem sage, Phlomis fruticosa) scattered throughout the yard.
Greenlee the grasses guy explains that, in their natural settings, grazing animals or wildfire would mow down most of these plants. Winter cold — when it happens — often takes herbs down to the soil line. Since few of those things occur in my yard, I get to stand in for grazers, fire and cold. Makes me feel like Mother Nature’s girl Friday.
The Big Chop takes days. I lucked out this year; Feb. 2, 3 and 4 were beautiful. I filled our green-waste toter within the first three hours, then borrowed several of my neighbor’s unused smaller garbage cans and promptly filled those. Some of the trimmings went into our overstuffed compost piles. There’s never enough space for all the editing my yard requires.
The result: A yard that looks completely different. From bushy to buzzed, tatty to tidy. This annual trim fest also gives me the opportunity to really clean up around these plantings, something I like to do just once a year.
And, in all honesty, my back won’t allow more than one Big Chop a year.
Copper Canyon daisies (Tagetes lemmonii) are done blooming, and in need of some serious editing. (photos by Kathy Thomas-Rico)
Done!