Chop Chop!

It’s spring and so it’s time to take a deep breath and start chopping…. Nothing sinister you understand just the grasses by the rooms.  They provide great value during the year and even more so during the winter months.  When everything else has retreated below ground, the grasses turn a glorious shade of gold and provide the birds with  their some tasty seedheads to get them through the colder  months.  They also provide a beautiful backdrop to the guest rooms in a way that echoes the reedbeds that line the river estuaries around here.

However by the end of the winter the wind will have taken their toll (though many are tough enough to emerge pretty much unscathed) and they need to be cut down before the new season’s growth starts to come through.

For most people taking backing ornamental grasses just means a few hours tops.  For me it’s more like a couple of weeks.  Although it’s partly the sheer volume of grasses but also the way that I choose to do it. If you watch the professionals they will tie up the grass creating a compact sheath and then use a  hedge cutter to saw through.   Presumably they then do what I used to do – burn them.  Not a very environmentally sound solution.  Instead I use a pair of secateurs to chop the grasses into small pieces and leave them in situ as a mulch.  They take a while to compost but in the meanwhile they keep the weeds down, keep our soil as moist as pure sand can be and ultimately improve the soil quality.

I won’t pretend that it doesn’t leave everything looking a bit messy for a while but the daffs are on their way and alongside hellebores and primulas they will be plenty to look at.  The stunning magnolia will also start coming into bloom shortly – a real showstopper as long as it’s not taken out by a mischievous late frost.