Ornamental Grasses

[Palustris]

I grow a large number of large clumps of various types of grasses, Cortaderia, Miscanthus, Mollina etc. I have just spent all yesterday cutting down the deciduous ones on just one bed. The shreddings filled 5 x 80 litre bags. The stems have to be shredded as they will not compost quickly when whole.
So for anyone who has them ,now is the time to cut them down and also to propagate them when the roots begin to regrow.

[Palustris]

I have now cut down about 2/3 of them and filled every bag I can find. There are still 9 clumps of  Pampas grass to deal with and they are the worst, the fronds and the flower stems do not shred and are very dangerous so need to be burnt. I cannot burn off the whole plant so I have to remove the old material and burn elsewhere.

[ideasguy]

Sounds like a lot of hard work there Eric. If its any consolation, I'm digging out some large shrubs at present, one a Buddleja glubosa, the other a Viburmum tinus. Both were all of 10ft, so very large roots.
I wont be planting anything like that in their place!

Do you have that cutting down process every year? Dividing them would be a major undertaking, I expect, especially the Pampas grass.

[Palustris]

They do have to be chopped down every year around now, the deciduous grasses that is. BUT not for much longer they are going to be weedkilled and replaced with trees.

[ideasguy]

Awww.
I guess you have to look at the maintenance side of things. Less work with the trees, Eric
What kind of trees have you in mind?

[Palustris]

Not only the maintainance, if one makes a bed for graasses then ALL grasses like it and so couch becomes a major problem and it has. We have a list of trees for the area and I will post about them whem we get them.

[ideasguy]

I'm surprised couch manages to competer with those grasses, Eric.
Its a thug I know, but I thought those grasses would have been pretty much impenetrable.