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Ornamental grasses are beautiful and enhance the visual appeal of your garden. There are several varieties of these grasses. Some stay short, and some grow tall. However, the growing season is different for different varieties. Some varieties begin to grow in the late winter to early spring, and some don’t even sprout until the mid of spring season.
If you don’t know the type of grass in your garden, you can keep an eye on their growth to know in which season it grows fast. Whatever the variety you choose to grow, ornamental grass needs seasonal pruning and maintenance. Cutting the ornamental grass is the best before the beginning of its growth. Let us check some tips to cut and prune ornamental grass to promote their growth.
The very first thing you need to know before pruning is the type of grass. You need to know whether it is a cold or warm-season grass. If you don’t know about the kind of grass in your garden, you can check it by observing their growth. The cold season varieties begin the new growth in the early spring while the warm season varieties begin growth much later in the same season.
Moreover, the warm season grasses start flowering in the late summer and early in the fall. The cool-season grasses begin to bloom in the early summer. Knowing the type of grass helps you to prune it in the right season.
To prune the dormant grass, you can tie them into bundles as it becomes easy to prune in this way. Use a bungee cord, rope, or gardening twine to tie the grass plant into a column and cut it in multiple stocks. The cut the grass using hedging shears about ten inches height. Once you cut it a ten inches height, you can make the final cuts to clean up. You should try to maintain the uniformity of the grass as possible.
If the grass is too thick to be cut by shears, you can use a weed eater and cutter to cut the grass. You need to use a tool with a blade and use the same to trim single bundles of grass at a time. You can get the pruning tools from a home improvement or gardening store. One should not operate a hedge or weed trimmer above their chest level as it can make them easily lose control of the blade.
To trim the dormant grasses short, you can use hedging shears. Cut a part of the grass under 3 feet while pruning to a height of 3 inches. The parts of the grass above 3 feet height should be cut close to 6 inches mark. If you want to maintain the natural look of the grass, you can taper it slowly between the two highest and lowest points.
The cool-season grasses don’t require cutting as far as the warm season varieties. Instead, you can trim down them to the lowest point of their new growth, which is 2/3rd of the height of the grass blades. For a 3 feet tall blade, it means you need to cut it near 1-foot height. You can use any hedging shears to prune both the warm and cool-season grasses.
You can remove the dead foliage every few months by gently running your hands through the grass. It is essential to wear rubber gloves to protect your hands from cuts by the grass blades. Its like finger combing the grass blades cutting the dead foliage with the help of handheld hedging shears.
Combing the grass can help remove most of the dead foliage, but if some stubborn blades are left, you can use a gardening shear to trim them out. You need to trim the blade at its base to remove the maximum part of the dead foliage.
The evergreen varieties of ornamental grasses require a trimming session once a year. You can use a hedge trimmer or garden shears to cut the brown dead flowering tips of the grass. You can cut the grass blades for new growth that is still green.
These are some tips to cut and prune the ornamental grasses in your garden. If you are not confident enough to prune the grass with precision, you can hire a professional landscaping service like tree service Penrith for accurate pruning. Following the tips in this post can help homeowners and garden owners to prune all varieties of ornament grass in their landscapes.
