GARDENING WITH NATURE

Article by Sigrie Kendrick

Think outside the box when prepping for winter

As gardeners, let’s remember to switch up the traditional garden tasks and think in a different direction: perhaps a more environmentally friendly one, that also provides us with more winter garden interest.

For instance, fall is the time of year when ornamental grasses shine. Many are in bloom and at the peak of their beauty.

What poet within us wouldn’t be charmed by the gentle way their graceful seed heads sway in the breeze and dance on the long stalks they’ve been growing all season? Grasses really add movement to your garden—unless you chop them down prematurely.

I recently had the opportunity to consider the importance ornamental grasses hold in our gardens as I cut down literally hundreds of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, commonly known as Feather Reed grass, at a client’s property.

So often clients want their grasses razed to the ground before the onset of winter as they
perceive the standing grasses to be “messy” rather than graceful.

Often, land care providers such as landscapers are all too happy to oblige as that means one less task facing them in the spring.

Instead of this perverse desire to tidy in the fall why not take into consideration all the benefits of leaving ornamental grasses over the winter?

What about ecology?

From an ecological standpoint there also are many reasons to leave your ornamental grasses and your perennials standing over the winter. They provide needed habitat for birds and a myriad of other wildlife, as well as for beneficial insects to overwinter.

The seed heads of ornamental grasses and also annuals and perennials which have gone to seed, provide food for birds, who have to forage widely during the colder months, just to survive. They also provide great erosion prevention and slope stability, especially where wildfire has run through the previous season.

The time to shear your ornamental grasses is when you begin to see new growth at the base sometime in spring. Then, don’t toss out the cut grass. Instead, find a spot in your yard where it will be out of your way, but will provide valuable habitat for beneficial insects.

Perennials can also be pruned in early spring, when new growth begins to be visible, while annuals can be pulled out as soon as the ground softens in late winter or early spring.

Remember too that the fallen leaves from deciduous trees should also be left where they fall, rather than being neatly raked up and composted elsewhere in the fall. Those rotting leaves are like gold to a gardener and they provide habitat for insects and wildlife while they decompose over winter.

They also suppress weed growth and protect the roots of perennials over winter and what’s left can be gently dug into the soil come spring.

So, leave the leaves, don’t mow down the grasses and allow perennials and annuals to go to seed (unless they tend to be invasive!)

Article by Mark Godlewski photos from Bluestem Nursery

• Cool season grasses start growing early in the spring as soon as the ground has thawed and can reach their full height early in the summer.
• Warm season grasses need the soil temperature to get above 20 degrees C and they take until fall to reach full height. If cold weather comes early, they sometimes give up on flowering.

Fig. 1  Evergreen – Blue Oat Grass

Cool season grasses include:

Arrhenatherum – Bulbous oat grass
Calamagrostis – Feather reed grass
Chasmanthium – Northern Sea oats
Deschampsia – Tufted hair grass
Elymus – Wild rye
Koeleria – June grass
Molinia – Moor grass
Poa – Meadow grass
Sesleria – Moor grass
Stipa – Feather grass

The following is an excerpt from the Blue Stem website. This site was put together by Jim Brockmeyer and Muriel Neale as part of a nursery business they were running in Christina Lake, BC. Both have now retired, but their excellent website lives on with funding for the hosting provided by OXA.

Feeding Ornamental Grasses

Instructions regarding the feeding of ornamental grasses are really very simple – don’t do it. Well, actually that is a bit of an exaggeration, but grasses actually prefer to be grown on the lean side. They will be sturdier without the addition of the high-powered nutrients. You may think that fertilizers such as those used on lawns would be appropriate for grasses, however, have you noticed how quickly the lawn grows after fertilizing? Tall-growing ornamental grasses will bolt for the sky and with such rapid growth will be unable to hold themselves up. Result – floppy plants.

Just remember to go easy on organic fertilizers too. On the Garden Web Forum, I have read a tale by an experienced ornamental grass grower who worked a lot of compost into his planting hole. The grasses flopped badly. In comparison, his grasses planted without compost did fine.

The only exception to the rule is Miscanthus. It does better with some extra fertilizer and moisture. The solution to the potential flopping problem is to use organic fertilizers such as well-rotted manure, mushroom manure, compost, leaf mold, etc. What makes organic fertilizers acceptable is that they release their nutrients sloooowly.

I hope I have convinced you? Limit your fertilizing!

Miscanthus Malepartus