Managing ornamental grasses

Last week, as I walked through my neighborhood, I snapped a couple photos of a front garden up the street.  The garden, installed last summer, has a simple palette, dominated by Nassella tenuissima (aka Mexican feather grass, fromerly classified as Stipa tenuissima), Senecio serpens (aka blue chalksticks), and white-flowered Lantana with Agaves tucked in here and there.

It's hard to make out many of the Agaves as they're hidden by the masses of feather grass

 

That garden was installed by a professional landscaping firm.  I saw some follow-up activity immediately after the installation but I haven't seen any maintenance activity since.  I wondered what kind of guidance the firm may have provided the homeowners, especially related to controlling the spread of the feather grass, which is known to be invasive in California.

I have the same feather grass in my back garden in several spots.  I love the way it dances in the wind, especially when it's in flower.  I didn't have any significant problems with it the first couple of years but more recently I've learned just how readily it self-seeds.  I've pulled some of it out and I actively monitor and manage the rest.

These are before and after shots of a section of feather grass in my backyard border.  I rake through each clump of grass by hand, pulling out the flowers, as well as any dead material.  It takes hours and, by the time I've finished all of them, it's usually time to take another pass.

Ridding the garden of tiny seedlings is an endless task, made more tedious and time-consuming when they root in between paving stones and amidst groundcovers.  This is a before and after shot of one small area.

 

I've been in spring cleanup mode for the past couple of weeks.  I've cut back all the bloomed-out Aeoniums - well, almost all.  I keep finding more.  I'm pulling gobs of weeds and deadheading spent flowers, as well as cutting back shrubs that may run counter to new regulations for managing fire risk.  (All properties in my high fire risk area are subject to evaluation by the local fire department beginning this month.)  Rain is a double-edged sword, something that's been easy to forget in recent years.  While admiring one of my backyard beds this morning, I realized how dramatically many of the trees I had pruned by professionals in mid-December had fleshed out.  I spent an hour yesterday trimming back the smaller of the two Arbutus 'Marina', only making a small dent in its growth.

View of the bed containing 2 Arbutus 'Marina' (aka strawberry trees).  The smaller tree has just about swallowed up the Melianthus major and has encroached on the surrounding plants, including a Leucadendron 'Jester', a Grevillea 'Ned Kelly' (currently invisible) and a Leucospermum "Royal Hawaiian Brandi'.  I discovered that I had gladiolas and lilies (also almost invisible) growing in there too.

This is a comparison of the smaller Arbutus after its pruning in mid-December and now (after I gave it a light pruning yesterday)

I didn't even try to do anything with the larger Arbutus.  This photo shows it immediately after it was pruned in December and now, 6 months later.

 

 

Work on my cutting garden is ongoing but I expect to have an update on that later this week.  We've had a few sunny days in a row now so there's no time to waste.

The fact that Pipig has voluntarily left her heating pad behind and retreated to her catio is proof that we've had warmer temperatures at last

All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party