Ornamental grasses. Simply put — they’re grasses that you do not mow.
That doesn’t mean that some of us have whole lawns full of ornamental grasses. This is a Miscanthus sinesis ‘Morning Light.’ It grows three to four feet tall, green and white variegated leaves.
And now in the spring, just as the new growth is emerging from the soil, is the best time to dig it up, divide it and share it with a friend.
There’s no particular magic with digging up and dividing an ornamental grass. Just cut pieces of it off like this one and pry up the rest of the clump. We’ll take it to a place where we can make a mess and chop it into smaller pieces.
If we don’t divide our ornamental grasses every two to three years the center of the clump tends to dry out and we wind up with a little donut of grasses instead of a nice clump. The reason the center tends to dry out on a grass is because these stems become so numerous that new stems literally can’t come up through all that old woody stem tissue.
What we’re going to do is simply chop it into pieces. Plant it in full sun. A piece this size will make a full size landscape specimen in your yard in one growing season. But even a piece as small as this one will come up and eventually grow into a nice plant. This is another typical case of multiplication by division.
Dividing Ornamental Grasses…
- Dig them up in the spring when the new growth is emerging
- Cut pieces off and pry up the clumps
- Take them somewhere and chop into smaller pieces
- Divide them every two or three years so the center does not dry out
- Plant the new pieces in full sun