Cutting miscanthus in spring

If you saw the volume of ornamental grasses in this garden you wouldn’t be surprised to know that this is a two blog post story.

Just cutting this miscanthus took almost an afternoon.  The stalks are just so chunky. And you have to take great care not to cut the newly emerging green shoots.

Add in a crop of hibernating ladybirds and you just can’t blithely wade in.

Up on the lawn bank behind the eragrostis have done brilliantly. The interspersed verbena bonariensis not as well. Lots of dead ‘uns in between my thicket of grasses.  That’s a shame. But it really is a parched dry environment.  Which means that the nettles and brambles amaze me.  Goodness there is quite a bit of work to undo there.

Creature has enjoyed the sunshine and the fun places to sleep.  (He’s not my friend at the moment, but that is for another day.)

But that does bring me to the vexing question of what to do with all the material that is low lying prettily all over the farm.

And if I told you that it is still lying there, some from days and days ago you will appreciate just how lazy I am.  But it’s fiddly stuff to bag up and move. I can’t tell you how many pieces of clothing I have that are now festooned with bits.

I am using the tarp for some.  Ikea bags for others. And the rest I’m just pretending someone is going to carry up to the top of the garden.  I think I might bundle the miscanthus and actually tie it up to make it easier to move.  That’s still in the pondering in front of the fire stage, rather than the action bit. But the main thing is the grass job is over for another year.