By early to mid summer, this grass looks fantastic and is a consistent performer year after year.
So what do you say we make some more?
I divided this warm season grass once before, about 3 years ago, and turned one plant into four. Here are two of the four as of summer 2012:
Not quite full size but definitely on their way.
The grass to be divided for today, sits at the corner of my deck and has clearly outgrown its space as seen in the two pics below:
So there was no better time than now to get down and dirty and cut me up some ornamental grass.
The first step was to dig a trench around the perimeter of the grass so it could be lifted out of the ground and cut into pieces:
And that sounds a hell of a lot easier than it truly was. We’re talking major shovel work and pounding and serious assistance from a giant shale bar. The root ball was covered in sticky ass clay (shocker) and so heavy, that I couldn’t lift it out of the hole.
Originally I thought about chopping away at the grass while it was still planted in the ground but the effort was futile. I couldn’t chop through the roots cleanly enough so I moved on to plan B where I settled on lifting the plant out of the ground just enough so I could then chop it up into smaller pieces.
Exhibit A – 1/2 of the grass in the front with 1/4 pieces in the back:
The cuts were relatively clean and I know this process worked in the past so I was ready to do the same again. All I know is, thank the heavens for inventing the shale bar:
I then moved on to cutting the 1/2 piece into 1/4 pieces and that couldn’t have been easier. A few massive stabs and boom:
I now had four grass divisions to work with. One went back into the same hole it just came from but moved away from the deck a bit more so I won’t have to divide again for a few years.
Another went to a new locale fillling in where an arborvitae had recently been removed:
I then decided to cut the two remaining 1/4 divisions in half. If my mathematical genius serves me correctly, I now had four 1/8 sections left to plant.
I planted them all near each other at the edge of the woods on my property figuring they would have plenty of time to mature into a nice mass of kick ass grass:
This project felt awesomely painful and was a stark reminder that my nearly 41 year old body isn’t what it once was. Wait … check that … I still got it and could keep up with any twentysomething. I ain’t giving in that easily.
I’m even proud of all the cuts and bruises I’m dealing with now as a result. The sting in the shower was a reminder that gardening season was friggin back.
All in a day’s work.
John
John, the grasses in your garden are so beautiful! They worth some suffering, cuts and bruises! Thanks for introducing me to the shale bar, I’ve never heard of it.
I saw Carolyn Kolb of Wind Dancer Garden speak about dividing grasses and she uses an angle grinder on the big ones . . . the tool you use to cut off steel bolts. Not easy work!
Great job, beautiful garden:) Greetings
What gorgeous grasses! Dividing can be such hard work sometimes, but worth it to get those extra plants,I’m sure they’ll look great in their new position.
Hi John,
You have introduced me to a new tool – a shale bar. Never heard of it before. I’ll have to ask at our local hardware store. But I vote going with a power tool, like the angle grinder mentioned by Heather than Carolyn Kolb uses. In fact, I’m going to google it right away and see if we have something like that in the basement. Grasses are really in there forever. We have 4 pampas grass clumps that a landscape firm is going to take out for us because they are too large for us to remove! And pampas grass is like saw grass, really hurts you just to stroke the leaves. So out they go, although they are beautiful in full bloom! Oh well…
Took my courage in my hands and did some dividing yesterday… not sure my plants will forgive me!
UGH…so jealous of how gorgeous those are…mine never gets that awesome color!
John .. wait until you are in your 50’s ! haha
I love ornamental grass and have a few .. I have one big sucker miscanthus Purple Flame Grass that really needs to be dug up and divided .. I am going to get some warm bodies to help me with that project .. I just had to pay a tree company some big bucks to remove a stump from a sumac I trained as a beautiful tree .. yes, I know .. “my bad ..” but it was a beauty.
Now on to the next chore ? haha
Joy 😉
Great job dividing that beautiful grass. I can’t wait to get out in the yard, but in the Twin Cities we just melted off our third round of April snow so the yard is still mushy. Your blog helps me imagine what I’ll get to do soon. Great blog in general, keep it up!
Thanks for the tutorial! For those that can’t find a shale bar, I have used a hand saw or bow saw to divide the root ball….works pretty well.