The Silence of the Grasses

I’ve been joking lately with Linniew about her way of pruning roses… I said it was a bit of a massacre instead of pruning but now here I am, with my old dusty hedge trimmer exhumed from the darkest part of the stable, ready to play a mad killer, running up and down the grass garden with a sadistic grin in my face and cutting whatever passes by. This is the grass and perennial massacre, or the silence of the lambs grasses.

I didn’t feel a real killer though, because I’ve cut already dead plants indeed. But the part of running around with the saw in hand was funny, shame I’m using an old wired trimmer and I almost killed myself when I stumbled on the rope!

The one above and the one below have been taken last week, before we have this strong, freezing, dry wind from Russia blowing insistently for more than a week, moving things, shutting shutters, plucking my feathery grasses and above all this wind made this little Italy shake cold and covered in snow.

Fortunately it didn’t snow in the Venice  area, we only experienced cold and very dry wind.

This morning the mercury marked -9° C and it was a very cold and bright morning. I was a little worried about my garden, exposed for more than one week to very low temperatures and this dry wind. I decided I should cut the perennials and grasses back and see what was left of them. I must admit I still found a little life at ground level and I felt relieved.

The water on the pond is now an at least 10 cm thick sheet of hard ice, I hope my gold fishes and gambusias are fine… (and the lotus as well…)

I started cutting back the tall perennials, like eupatoriums and I mulched the dried stems, then I proceeded trimming the grasses horizontally, slicing every 20 cm or so, at the end I moved the mulch over what remained of the plants to eventually protect them from further cold.

The result is rather sad but it is a necessary stage of the circle of life. Or so they say… I think it’s pretty ugly. I just hope it is going to rain now, so that nice mulch will settle and soon the plants will grow green over it.

Meanwhile I am sketching maps and plans for the new parts of the garden that we are going to make this year. I need to re think the large bed of the yucca (pictured above) because all the deschampsias there didn’t perform as they should, too wet in winter (the past one!) and too dry and hot in summer for that particular grass, shame. I need to plant something tougher and possibly improve the soil.

Then we are going to lie the gravel on the gravel garden, finally, but I need to move some plants before, and last but not least I’m planning a new bed that I call the squared bed (which is actually rectangular) featuring 6 1mt topiary cubes (osmanthus x burkwoodii) and an old fashioned italian pear, small, sweet and ripen the 29th of June, San Pietro’s day, in fact this pear is called San Pietro’s Pear. I’ll keep you posted on future work in progress…

Tags: grass garden, grasses, open border, perennials, tall perennials, water on the pond

• 6 February 2012
• Cà Rossa
• 32 Comments