Splitting my Maiden Grass

9 years ago

I plan on splitting my grass in the spring. When is too early? Too late? I tried this last year and my grasses that I split from now look terrible and many look like they have blight. Could splitting cause this?
Also what is the best way to split? They are so hard to split!
Any advice is appreciated :)

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Comments (3)

donn_
9 years ago
Your questions have been answered on the forum hundreds of times. If you use the search function, or Google's site search, you can find them easily.

Below is a link to 312 results of a forum search on "divide miscanthus"

Here is a link that might be useful: Divide Miscanthus
TexasRanger10
9 years ago
You know what---I can remember when this used to be a lively and active forum with interesting discussions among friendly people. I wonder why it isn't anymore? donn, if you pull up the member page of the OP you will see the join date was on the same day as this post was made with a simple request for friendly advice. How was he/she to know the question has been asked and answered already "a hundred times"? Thats a bit harsh.

The best time to split the grass is in late winter or early spring before new growth has begun. I use a saws-all to cut dense roots into manageable sections. Its easier of course to cut down the grass first but you probably have that part figured out. Digging is more difficult than splitting in my opinion but yes, they are hard to split. You can also core out the dead center and add new soil and leave the whole clump in place if you want. The grass will fill in with new growth in the doughnut hole.

As far as your grasses looking blighted, I don't know. I had some panicum grasses this year that for some reason didn't look their best. I am suspecting junebug grubs maybe? I'm not sure, but I dug out a large clump of P. rothstahlbusch and there were 5 or 6 of them in the roots and a couple of them eating the roots of a small M. rigens that didn't seem to be growing well also.

Sometimes I have found larger grasses sometimes need a full season to develop roots and they don't look very good the first year. I divided a large Muhlenbergia lindhemeirii year before last and the new plants only really came around with good growth this last year.

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Thu, Nov 20, 14 at 2:09
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donn_
9 years ago
"donn, if you pull up the member page of the OP you will see the join date was on the same day as this post was made with a simple request for friendly advice. How was he/she to know the question has been asked and answered already "a hundred times"? Thats a bit harsh. "

I did look at the profile before I replied. I also noted he bumped a 2005 thread on Blight, which he obviously found by searching.

I don't think my reply was harsh at all. There's nothing harsh about tipping off a new member to the features of the forum.