Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Giving Blue Oat a Haircut

Winter die back on Blue oat grass, 2011
Blue Oat Grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens) is semi evergreen in our climate.  It depends on the winter we have how it's going to look come Spring.  Some years we only have to run our fingers through the plant  to remove dead leaves.  Other years (2011 being one of them)  there was much more die back and we had to trim them back severely.  We had a reasonably mild winter and lots of snow cover last year.  It's hard to say why there was so much damage.  These photos will show you that they will still regrow and look fabulous again before you know it, so don't despair!
Blue Oat after its Haircut April 23, 2011
By May 3, 2011 It's starting to grow out
By May 16 It's filling out nicely
By June 1 you'd never know it had a haircut
It's June 24 and it's looking spectacular!
It's July 18, 2011 (the same plants)
This proves that you're not going to hurt the plant by trimming back severely, you may even encourage it to thicken up!
Posted by at
Labels:

3 comments:

  1. Fred2 February 2012 at 06:19

    I had this plant in the garden but I found that after flowering, the foliage tended to flatten out, it happens the same thing at home?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paulette Phelan Kelly2 February 2012 at 08:43

    I'm not sure why that would happen, Fred. Our plants are in full sun and sandy soil that drains very quickly. I'm assuming that is why we've never had that happen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fred2 February 2012 at 13:28

    Actually my soil is a bit heavy, can be the cause

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)