Day Two: Spring

Today definitely took me a long time to get going. I think it was the time change, or at least that is my excuse. I had to go to Los Feliz, a neighborhood on the northeast side of the city, to finish cleaning up a front yard. It is a design I did three years ago and includes lots of ornamental grasses and native shrubs. Normally I would have cut back the grasses after Christmas, but the owners were having lots of family visiting in January and February so I wanted to leave the yard looking great for their out of town guests. As a professional gardener, these are things I like to take into consideration.
I find in LA there is not a real season to cut back the grasses. Back East, where it freezes and snows and has a real winter, the grasses naturally die back and you cut them down when you do the spring clean up. I always liked removing the dead leaves in the spring and seeing the tiny shoots of life coming out of the recently thawed ground! Spring there truly is a blessing and a gift after months of rough weather. Here plants grow year round and there is never a true freeze, some frosts now and then which do their own bit of damage, but not the real freeze of the colder regions. I have discovered that sometimes you have to just decide when to cut things back rather than having nature decide for you.
'Cutting Back' is important for several reasons. It can keep shrubs smaller and more manageable, like Wistringia, which seems to bloom and grow all year round. Cutting back also is essential in keeping plants green rather than woody, like lavender. If you let lavenders (and Rosemary) go then they will develop very woody stems and will only have greenery and flowers at the tips of the plants. By cutting them back (usually a third of the green growth) while they are still young, the stems will leaf out lower and stay bushy. The only problem is that sometimes you have to do this when they are still blooming! It feels soooo wrong to do, but I go in anyway knowing that it will keep the plant beautiful in the long run. For lavenders I cut them twice a year; once after their first bloom (about May) and then another time in November or December. And it smells so good!
Ornamental grasses are the worst. Some, like Miscanthus, automatically die in the fall. They are easy. If they enhance the landscape, I leave the dead stems in until now, and if they just look dead, I cut them down. Other plants, like the Pennisetums, don't seem to ever quit growing, but if you don't cut them back in the winter, the new growth will come up amongst last years growth and the bottom will look brown for the summer. Very unattractive!
Check this out:

OK, this was taken last summer, but you can see the grasses in full bloom. Here is what it looks like today, after I cut it back. I still think that it is good. The red flowers on the bottom of the previous photo is Anigozanthus 'Big Red' which is just starting to send up flowers now. I do love this yard as it looks different in every season.


Really, the best part of being a professional gardener, in any locale, is watching things change and mature and evolve over time. I love it!

TTFN Kate