Ornamental grass clean-up in record time

Twilight of the grasses from last season

It was very cold yesterday, but dry, so the cutting down of our masses of ornamental grasses went ahead. I actually hired a landscaping company this year. It was wonderful: five young men swooped in with a truck and two gas-powered hedge trimmers.

After cutting down the grasses, they threw the material onto a tarp, and then loaded it onto their truck and drove it to their headquarters down the road, where it will naturally compost.

The splendid crew from Cedarsprings Landscaping

I think it was about five loads in a three-quarter ton truck. What an amazing amount of labor we avoided by doing it this way - and the job took just half a day! I guess this means that my husband and I have reached the age (50s and 60s) when it starts to became desirable to farm out the really hard jobs. Actually, the impetus for this solution was no longer having a pickup truck. (John got tired of driving it, and wanted a car again.)

I used to rely on his truck to move the grasses. (It's impractical to move that much dead plant material with wheelbarrows.) John would cut down the grasses, and with the assistance of two gals (both around my age), we would work on the clean-up for a couple of days, our arms would get all scratched up.

Now the gals and I can proceed with the finesse gardening when it gets nice. That's supposed to happen later this week.

The only downside of grasses: bare early spring,
but heck this is the country and we can live with it for a few weeks

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

The BIG ornamental grasses clean-up

Toby sniffs around last year's grasses
This was the week of the big garden spring clean-up. My beds around the house are dominated by ornamental grasses. I like to say that no other plants are as easy to maintain: All you need to do is cut down and clear away the previous year's growth in late winter or early spring.

But this is easier said than done. For the job, we always rent a gas-powered hedge trimmer, and the actual cutting takes half a day. It's clearing last year's growth away that makes it such a huge job. But with three helpers, we managed to do all the rough clean-up in one day. The rest of the week was spent on a more thorough clean-up of all the beds, and we've also begun to work on the edging. After that comes weeding and mulching.

After cutting down the grasses
The landscape looks a bit odd without the ornamental grass foliage. There a few bulbs in between the clumps that will bloom soon to give us some colour before the grasses start to grow again.

Here's how our front garden looks after the grasses have put on their spring flush of growth:

New flush of growth; photo from spring '06
If you're interested in ornamental grasses, I have lots of information about them on my web site.
© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener