This is the time of year I hate ornamental grasses. Cutting back the smaller ones is not too bad, although you're just left with a big blank spot in the garden when done. The miscanthus, though, is messy and impossible to cut neatly. I have to use the Japanese pruning saw.
The fronds blow around no matter how I tie the clump up first. And then disposing of the light colored stalks is a problem. They blow around unless weighted down in a pile, and they are an eyesore, very bright colored out in the compost row.
I put them on the back hill and piled other stuff on top, but they are like a beacon from the kitchen window.
The panicums and the Karl Foerster grasses had already been cut back after last fall's snowstorm.
Sitting in the Adirondack chairs in the gravel garden in the sunny afternoon is delightful. This is still March, unbelievably. All the grasses are cut back now, and the caryopteris too.
I pruned the climbing hydrangea, which needs much more shape and it needs to be trained toward the pergola, which it just reaches finally. A lot of the main branches want to arch out in the other direction.
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| Not a very graceful reach to the top, and it's too woody to bend. |
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| Tangled woody stems almost reach the top of the pergola |
I should have trained the very young twigs in the general direction toward the garage side, but I waited till they were long enough, and now they are too woody and twisted in unbendable shapes. Eventually the lattice panel and the cedar tuteur will be removed, and the vine will stand on its own, reaching the pergola for support.
