Cutting Back & Dividing Ornamental Grasses In The Spring

Jim & Mary take listeners through the process of ornamental grass care, inlcuding when to cut them back and how to divide and transplant overgrown grasses.
There is no better time to cut back and divide ornamental grasses than in late winter and early spring. Not only can it keep your grasses manageable, it can also create all kinds of new grass transplants to use all over your yard.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competiti. Hello andwelcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I'm your host, to Competiti alongwith my wife Mary. And Mary
we're here today to talk about ornamentalgrasses, which have been a big part

(00:23):
of our life for a long timeon the farm for landscaping. Yeah,
our old farm had hundreds and hundredsof ornamental grasses throughout, so this is
a topic that we know a lotabout. Yeah, unfortunately, way too
much about when it comes to cuttingthem down and dividing them before we get
into that. As always, ifyou have any questions or ideas for podcasts
for future garden topics, email usat the farm at owgarden dot com.

(00:46):
You can follow us and sign upat Simple garden Life dot com or on
Facebook or on your favorite podcast app. We're on a all and I have
to say if I sound a littledifferent today, it's getting to the spring
and it's getting the allergy season,and gosh, I think we wanted to
start taking something for this. Itis. It's ourgy season everywhere, and
you know, it's one of thosethings that we fight every year, but
we get through it knowing what's goingto be come up and coming garden season.

(01:08):
It's such a catch twenty two becausewe both used to take honey our
bees, honey, local honey,I know, and it works, it
works, wonders. You have totake it about a month in advance.
But then you know there's that problemof that honey has so much sugar.
It's just really it's really not fair, you know, you know it stings
getting all doesn't You're only old ifyou feel that way, right anyway,

(01:29):
I'll battle through it. We'll befine. So, as we talked about,
today's podcast is all about ornamental grasses. You know, we talked when
we first started landscaping our original farm. Gosh, it's been thirteen years ago.
Ornamental grasses were a great way forus to landscape on the cheap.
I mean we could we had someexisting in our house. We were able

(01:49):
to take divisions out there, andI think at one point when we left,
we probably had a little over whatfour or five different types of ornamental
grass all over the farm. Wedid, and we didn't pay for our
single one now, you know,and in our own mind, you know,
Mary and I try to keep thingssimple, hence the name Simple Garden
Podcast, Simple Garden Life Podcast.But we'd named them just what they were
after So, I know, mysister Judy gave me some grasses from her

(02:12):
place and they were tall and narrow. We loved them. I know the
real name, but we called themJudy grasses. I think we had those.
We had mound grasses. We hadall kinds of names. We had
small grasses and medium grasses, largegrasses, judy grasses, variegated grasses.
We think we had a bunch.So but the point is for us,
it was a really great way andthere's a lot of good reasons for ornamental
grasses in the landscape. You talkabout trying to save on water and trying

(02:36):
to save on maintenance. You know, they're drought resistant, their deer resistant,
which has become really big on ournew farm because we have a lot
more deer here than we ever didat our own place. And they had
a lot of color, texture andbeauty all the year round. I mean,
not just in the spring when they'recoming up green, and not just
in the summer when they're bright andtall, or in the fall when they're
really beautiful and they have those plumeson top of them. But you know,

(02:58):
we leave ours up through the winter, and for a lot of good
reasons. I mean, they're fantasticjust first of all and foremost for what
they do for the landscape. Yeah, they provide a lot of structure to
the landscape. They're a lot ofbeauty to the landscape. And honestly,
the birds love them as well.Well they are. I mean, it's
a great cover for winter animals.It's a great cover for the birds.
It's a great cover when they goto build their nests. So we leave

(03:20):
them up. But here's the thing. In early spring, actually even late
winter ornamo grasses for us, theystart to have had a couple of snows
on top of maybe some ice.They start to fall over and it's time
to take care of them. Andthat's what we're talking about today, is
what do you do with your ornamograsses in the spring? Again, you
can cut ornamental grasses back in thefall. You can divide them in the

(03:40):
fall if you really want to.Spring is the best time though, it's
the safest time. You don't haveto worry about anything. And actually,
when I say spring, i'm talkingabout any time the ground can be worked.
It does not have to be fortyor fifty degrees like we talked about
more planning and vegetables. You canbe thirty five or I've been out there
many times cutting them down and we'vebeen dividing them up as they're extremely hardy,
right, ordomo, grasses are veryforgiving and can come back in almost

(04:04):
any condition. That's right. Andlike I said, anytime, really,
once the ground is warm enough,if you're gonna be digging them up,
if you're cutting them back, youcan cut them back anytime in the winter.
I do want to get into onething. We talk about this a
lot and people get this question.I know you're going to tell a story
and I can't help it. Butshould you not cut them down? Should

(04:27):
you burn them down? Oh?Yeah, yeah? Well so look,
just to be safe, just cutthem back. You know, if you
lived out somewhere where there's no dangerof fire and they're wide open and you
can burn them down. It doesnot harm the grasses. That actually is
actually fairly good for them. Itburns them down, regenerates them. This
is that's something that occurs in thewild quite often with grasses and prairie lands.

(04:49):
However, I just want to say, you don't want to do it
when it's near a fence, well, not in near a fence, and
not in your pine trees or leavesthat are stuck underneath them. So I
don't know if we want to tellthis story right now or a little bit
later, but there's some stories behindburning grasses down. So it's best to
cut them. We don't do that. We don't do it anymore. I

(05:09):
did it for years, we hadthem away from places. Now that we
have a lot of wood structures,we just don't do it. Mary tried
it once on our own without yourway. We lost. We lost a
pine tree. Let's just put itthat way and all as well now.
So it was many many many yearsago. No literally, I thought I
was going to have to call thefire department, and I thought the whole
neighborhood was going to burn out.Yeah, and I'll joking aside, that

(05:30):
is exactly why you don't do it. Cut them down. We learned our
lesson long ago. It's just betterfor everything all the way around. And
also we've noticed this too, whenyou cut them back versus burning, you
can cut them a few inches higher. It give us a little bit more
texture the landscape until they come through. And also that four to six inches
is we'll get into of leftover grassthat you leave really helps them. New

(05:51):
grasses get a little bit stronger asthey're coming up, especially for tall grasses,
so I think really quickly. Youknow, we talk about the benefits,
the low maintenance, the drought resistance, the deer resistance. They're also
past resists, fast growing. Youcan divide a grass every few years.
We've done it many times to developinto areas. It's just a great all

(06:14):
purpose landscape plant. If there's someornamental grasses that you love and you want
to purchase them in the store,that is fantastic. Get them in the
ground and by the very next yearyou can dig them back up, usually
within two years for sure, andget at least four plants. Sometimes we've
been able to get twelve and sixteenpants from somewhere from our larger ones.
Yeah, and you know, ortamotograsses do make great interest in the landscape,

(06:35):
but they also provide shelter for animals. They also provide a natural barrier
the things that you don't want tosee. It's a great summertime plan to
have, and just being able tokeep that interest in your landscape is important.
And great wind break in the winter. We've used them a lot of
times in some of our lines forsnowbanks and wind breaks, so they're great.
So well, let's get to thisright now. I think that our

(06:57):
question of the week this week isreally big for us to talk about everything
we're going to talk about when itcomes to how you want to dig them
up and how you want to divide, and it comes from I think Pete
descendso today. Yeah. Pete's fromWichita, Kansas. He writes to us.
When we purchase our house five yearsago, we had a stand of
ornamental grasses that were beautiful. Nowthey're overgrown. It looks like they are
dying. Every summer they just fallover. Should I pull them out?

(07:20):
Or is there any way I cansave them? I've been saving this question
from Pete for three weeks because Iknew we were going to do a podcast
and Pete, the important thing hereis they're fine. You're going to be
able to save these grasses. Youalways can. That's what makes ornamental grasses
so great. The falling over.When people don't like ornamental grasses, they're
like, oh, they fall,that just means they're way too old.

(07:41):
An ornamental grass should be a nice, tight stand that comes up plumes over,
maybe after a few snowfalls in thewinter. But when they start to
get to the point where they're overgrownand big, that's when you have problems.
But that doesn't mean you have topull them out and kill them.
We'll get into this in a littlebit. But ornamental grasses grow from the
inside out, which means that insidesection dies off the quickest and the outside

(08:03):
edges continue to grow out. Sothat's why the grasses get bigger and bigger.
You might notice that when your grassesget to this point that the center
doesn't grow at all. It lookslike it's dead and it only the perimeter
grows. Yeah, and that's exactlywhat's happening. The center is dying out
and the plant continues to grow outward. Well, the bigger the plant gets,
the longer it's been in the ground, the more tangled the roots become,

(08:24):
the less likely those outer branches,because they're already leaning out, are
going to stand up. That's whereyou get your big ornamental grasses to fall
over, So regular digging up andregular dividing a keeps them much healthier,
keeps them much more able to managefrom that fall over standpoint, and regular
dividing gives you a heck of alot more plants to use in your landscape

(08:48):
around or to give to friends andfamily. So we're going to get into
that. First, we're going totalk about cutting them back, and then
we're going to talk about, youknow, how to dig them up,
and we're to plant them and dividethem and even when you have too many
grasses once you dig them up,what to do with those extras. But
first we'll take an ad break tohelp pay for this podcast, and we'll
be right back after this with howto cut them back the easiest way and
a couple of secrets and then howto divide them. All right, we

(09:11):
are back and had to laugh onour break. Mary did remind me that
although she did burn down a pinetree wants a very small pine tree,
that I burnt a pretty large sectionof our garden fence. It was smoking
for days and some grass. Soone more reason we try to give real
world advice, and the real worldadvice is don't burn just not worth it.

(09:35):
Anything can happen. So let's getinto exactly that's that's a great point.
So as we get back to it, let's first talk about cutting them
down and what you can use tocut grasses down. You know, I
see a lot of people out therewith the little hand pruners cutting blade by
blade or look when you have alot of grasses, even when you have

(09:56):
just a few grasses. We learneda couple of years ago there's a couple
of tools that can make all thedifference in this first and foremost my favorite,
I'm going to go right to it. Battery powered headge trimmer. Oh
if you have them, even anelectric I like the battery because you're not
cutting your cord. But the batterypower. They've come so far and it's
a tool that everyone should own.We actually have a link on this podcast

(10:18):
with all the affiliate things on therefor one that we like. Um but
you know what, you snap thatbattery and you go out and you just
for medium and tall size grasses seconds, Mary, I mean, it makes
it's you can do it very absolutely. And you know, for someone that's
not as strong as you are,having a battery operator or power operated tool.
Hedge trimmers is crucial to get thisdone. Yeah, and I you

(10:41):
know, we go out there andyou don't have to worry about banning them
together. We just take them downthere. You cut them right at the
base of where you need. We'llget to where hollow you should cut the
second. But by far, thatis the greatest tool to use. Now,
if you don't have that, orif you just have a few grasses
and they're small grasses, pair ofhedge trimmers, that's what you use.
It's it's perfect, and get underneaththem. Even if a mounted grass cut
them back. That's a great handtool to use. Don't use the small

(11:05):
printers. Its. Grasses are justlike I don't think they're wiry. They're
hard to cut off. So youuse a pair of headge tremmers or that.
Now you get some big monster grasses, you know, fountain grasses.
You can find some varieties that growfifteen to sixteen feet tall, half inch
thick at the bottom. Forget allthat, get yourself a chain soall battery
powered or gas powered, wipe themdown. That's the quick way. Make

(11:26):
it easy. Grasses are only hard. And the last thing I'm gonna say
is always wear gloves and a sweatshirtor a shirt. I have had cuts
and abrasions. They'll they'll cut youup something fierce, So just remember that.
Put them on by protection. Veryeasy for those blades to get you.
So cut them down. Now.I know I have to wear a
long sleeve shirt because I get arash from picking up the branches. The

(11:48):
same way for me, So Imean, yeah, definitely, but the
headge trimmers are the way to go. Now, let's talk about where you
should be cutting these at. Ithink this is the big misconception. I
see people cut them at twelve andsixteen inches high and leave them up.
It's okay, but it takes along time to look good in your landscape
while things are growing. I alsosee people cut especially medium and tall grasses

(12:09):
right to the ground. Not abig fan of that for a couple of
reasons. Number one is I liketo cut medium and tall sized grasses,
any grass that grows between two foottall to up. Yeah. I like
to cut them four to six incheshigh level right across. And people are
like, well, why do youwant to do that? You know,
I want them down so I can'tsee them until the new growth comes through
because that new growth needs some supportand structure. We talked about things falling

(12:31):
over those old cane. Yeah,the old blades that are hardened actually provide
a lot of early support. Sowhen those grasses start to grow, they
start to grow up straight. Ilove leaving that there, But more importantly,
you want to mulch around those Andwhen you leave them in the ground,
first of it saves a lot onmultch. You know, we might

(12:52):
have a flower bed with ten ofthose in them that are twelve inches to
eighteen inches around in diameter. Idon't want to mulch over all that.
I want to multry up to them. When you leave it forward to six
inches, you see right where togo. But it gives that structure.
It also gives your landscape something init when there's nothing else. When you
cut into the grounds, you havea giant thing of mulch and I just
have never liked that, right,And you know, leaving a little bit

(13:15):
of the stems are gives some interest. Still even the winter, you can
see where they're supposed to come.You're not going to plant something else right
there. And again you don't havea big better mulch, and you can
actually save money by not putting mulchover top of those. Absolutely, they're
going to fill in thick. Sohow far to cut back We talked about
medium to large for the smaller grassesthat grow a foot or mounting grasses,
you know, I like to takethose down to about one inch, just

(13:37):
up maybe two inches at the most. Just give them a little that quickly
grows through. I mean, whenthe new growth comes on, it's going
to cover them up very very quickly, and you're not really going to have
to worry about anything. But don'tcut them flush the ground. It's just
it's far better to not do that. As far as we've already talked about,
like when you should cut them,you can cut them any time from

(13:58):
fall till spring, letting them throughthe winter, you know, to help
help wildlife, to help other things. But when they start to get ugly,
when they start to fall over,if you've had a few ice starts.
We've had that before. We've comedown as early as the first of
January just because they've looked so badand they're down, so that's not going
to hurt. And now and now, once you've cut them down, you
really have to think about how oftenshould I be doing this? People ask

(14:18):
us like, if I don't wantto have new plants, how long can
I leave my grasses in the ground. You know what my thing is that
inside outside growth. We talked aboutthe inside dying off. That's going to
happen. Within two to three years, you're going to start seeing some fall
over from the outside edges. Mepersonally, you know this, three to
five years is pretty much my limitto really keep them, not just because

(14:41):
it really makes them look great,which it does. It also keeps the
roots healthy. But you're going tounderstand this when it comes to digging them
out. You wait any longer thanthat, it's very difficult. I mean
I've watched you. I've watched youcome in and say I'm not doing it
right. No, it's best todo it when they're three to five years
old. That way you can actuallydig the root ball out, divide it.
And you know, the key forkeeping weeds out of your flower beds

(15:03):
is to fill your flower beds.Great point. And the more transplants you
can have, whether it's grasses orperennials, the more you can pack them,
and the more you pack them,the less like theres or weeds there'll
ever be in. And if youdon't want any more ornamental grasses but need
to take care of yours, I'msure family and friends will be glad to
take those off your hands. That'sright, that's right. So once you
cut them down, pay attention tothat inside edge. If you don't know

(15:24):
how what your grasses are, maybeyou move to a new property. Maybe
you are like me, and sometimesyou just forget when you really put those
in the ground. Take a lookat that center. If that center is
starting to die out at all,you know it's time to pop it out.
And like I said, the quickeryou pop them out, the more
often you pop them out, theless heart it is on you. It's
very fast. What do you use? You just use an ordinary spade shovel,
very very easy to do. You'regoing to go around the edge of

(15:46):
the grass. You're gonna be ableto see where you've cut off. We
go about an inch and a halfto two inches outside. Just trust me,
if you want to save your back, dig all the way around the
edges. Dig a second time,a little bit deeper, and then you
can usually get at the shovel underneathand it'll pop out right and it'll pop
out on one side and then youmay need to go over the other side
and finish it off. And thisis where a pick can come in handy.

(16:07):
If you have large grasses, thepick will go on one side.
You can dig it down and popthem out. We do that quite often
here with our large grasses. Butdig around the perimeter, pop them out.
And then this is my final thing. When you're going to totally divide
and you're popping that plan out,flip the plan over. This is the
biggest little secret that people don't realize. I've watched people try to hammer through

(16:29):
the top and they can't see thatbottom root structure. When you flip it
over, there's the dirt. It'sright there. All the grasses on the
other side. You can take ashovel, you can take an axe if
it's a giant one. But youcan split them into even sections from reversal.
We use this with all of ourperimeters. It's just nice. Cut
them down, flip them over,and you can cut even root sections.
Right. You're actually you know,we're talking about cutting the root ball itself.

(16:52):
So once you have the ornamental grassout of the ground, you're talking
about the dirt. The roots thatare at the very bottom, that's what
you're cutting. That's where you wantto cutting. You slice all the way
through to the top where the grasswas, and you have your set and
people ask all the time, like, I'm really worried. I think I
damage quite a bit of them.Ornamental grasses are like hostas and like daylilies,
very forgetting. You can't kill them, Okay, as long as you

(17:12):
dig them up, as long asyou put them in soil that's not frozen,
and as long as you cover themback up, they're not going to
pass away. And a lot ofpeople are going to ask about what size
should my new group ball be?Great point? Right, great point?
So common sense will tell you thesize of your root is going to be
the size that comparable to the sizeof your plant. So if you have

(17:36):
an eighteen inch diameter grass that youdug out and you cut it into four
even sections, you're going to geta nice six to eight inch diameter plant
that year, and then it's goingto grow in two or three years to
be that eighteen inch plant. Again, I like those sizes. I like
those sizes to keep in there.You don't have the dead middles you don't
have the worries. Sometimes we've hadthis before. You want a little bit

(17:56):
bigger of a screen area somewhere,I'll leave them big. So I might
leave a twelve inch cut in there, knowing that it's going to produce a
larger grass that year. So thereis no wrong answer. There is no
wrong answer. A lot of people, whether it's daylily, these grasses,
anything, a lot of people justlike I want a mass planting in small
plants or I want a big plantingof three big plants. That's what you

(18:17):
do. You cut them to whereyou want them. And when you have
that, and we talk about howmany plants you can get an average eighteen
inch grass if we pop it outfor us, we usually probably get four
to eight plants from that, dependingon how big you run them. We'll
cut them in quarters or eights andwe'll take those plants and then we'll put
them out. So again, asfar as replanning, gosh, you hear

(18:40):
us talk all the time about oh, you want to put composts. You
don't put worm castings and grounds,Yeah, you don't need any of that.
With an ornamental grass, you needto put soil around and they actually
do better with you know, regularsoil and not special Make sure your souls
loose. That's the one thing I'lltell you. Know. You don't want
to plant it in hard clay andhave water in the bottom of the hole.
But other than that, put thatroot in there. Bury them so

(19:02):
that the top of the root wherethe grass hit comes even with the grass,
not above, not below right,even put them in covered up forget
about it, and as soon asit warms up in a few weeks,
it's going to come out right.And you may see some initial dying off
just from dividing if your grasses havecome out correct right, So just be
patient and they will come back.Yeah, And people ask how late can

(19:22):
I do this? You're really withornamental grasses. It's not like anything else.
You need to do it right,you know, before they come out,
ever, which is the best time, or right as they're coming out.
If you wait until that grass isa foot tall and start splitting them,
there's a pretty good chance if theweather gets warm, you might lose
your grasses. So just remember that, get to them early, and if
you have extra this is my bigtip of the week for extra plants.

(19:42):
We did this when we were kindof you know, really landscaping from scratch.
We'll do it again now with thenew form, because we need a
lot more plants. Go create alittle holding bed somewhere in a corner of
your property, in the corner ofyour garden, dig up a little space.
Put all these little extra spots.Don't space them like you would in
a flower bed. Space them acouple inches of heart. Just drop them
in there so they can start togrow. Middle of summer you make a

(20:04):
new bed, or late fall oreven next year, boom, you have
ready to go plants. Your friendscome over. Oh I wish I had
a grass like that. Here yougo. It's a great way to landscape
on the cheet. Yeah. Andlast but not least, And we're just
about ready to wrap up here.I do want to cover one thing that
it's always so upsetting to me.In stores. Just be careful that the
grass you purchase is going to bea grass that can survive your winter.

(20:30):
I know you're growing area, andlook at the back of the tag and
it will tell you where's a perennialwhat growing area is? I mean,
stores are notorious for, especially bigbox stores. It's a big sticking point
for me of I'll give you agreat example. Here in Ohio where we
live, you will see purple fountaingrass, which is beautiful. And we
do grow purple fountain grass here asan annual, not as a perennial or

(20:51):
we bring it inside. It isnot It is a perennial, but not
here, and that happens a lot. So make sure your perennial that you're
buying is designed for your growing zone. Because what happens is people go out,
they buy these beautiful purple grasses,they grow gorgeous that year, they
freeze out because they can't handle itright. It's important to know what your
growing zone is and look at thoselabels and make sure it's exactly what you

(21:11):
want. Yeah, I'll I'll puta link on this podcast at the end.
We always have all the affiliate linksand also particle or excuse me,
article links, and I'll put thaton there. We have a great growing
zone article with growing zones on thereand definder, so you can take a
look at that. But just alwaysbe careful. I hate, you know,
grasses are cheap thirty forty fifty buckssometimes when you're buying the first one,

(21:32):
and I hate to see people spendall that money and then they die
out, because that can happen,absolutely, and it's so easy to divide
your own and once you have themestablished, you know, it's a great
way to get more and more forfree. There's so many ornamental grasses out
there, from small grasses and biggrasses. I don't yeah, I don't
really think there's a Judy grass.My sister Judy here's that. She's gonna
laugh. But but you know,there's just so many different varieties and so

(21:53):
many and I encourage you to putthem in your landscape because again, you
don't have to water them, youdon't have to do the thing you need
to do to all the other plantsto keep them alive. And it's one
of the reasons we really like themso much. So I guess in conclusion,
let's just talk about really what yougot to do. I mean,
it's about getting out there early latewinter, early spring, cutting them back,

(22:15):
seeing if you need to divide.Once you see if you need to
divide, it's really about okay tohave to pop this out and how many
plants going to get Obviously, alwaysalways throw away that centerpiece, right,
absolutely throw any dead pieces away.And when you are cutting your large grasses
back, cut them about you know, five to six inches above the ground
so you have that structure that supportwhen they start to grow back. Absolutely,

(22:36):
and for smaller grasses you can goa little bit shorter, but Mary's
right, five six inches is perfectfor the top. And then obviously just
repaying into your regular soil. Youdon't have to do anything crazy. Put
them in there and they're going togive you extra new plants for free.
So I think that's it for ornamentalgrasses. We've got some exciting podcasts coming
up in the next few weeks.We really enjoy everybody. We get tons
of emails and I love always hearingfrom you, so feel free to email

(22:57):
us at the farm at ow gardendot com with any of your questions or,
like I said, ideas for newshows, and we'll go from there.
Mary, I think it's time andremember, whatever you do, find
the fun and gardening and grow somethingbeautiful. Until next week, everyone,
happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyedthis episode. Subscribe to The Simple Garden
podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts,Spotify, or most of your favorite podcast

(23:21):
apps. You can also head overto simplegardenlife dot com, where you can
listen and read all of the shownotes to every episode and if you have
any questions, any ideas for showtopics, or if you want to share
your favorite garden tip, email usat the farm at owgarden dot com.
Until next time, Thanks everyone,