This guy is such a drama queen every storm… I thought switchgrass didn’t flip like this. In full sun too! He’s impossible to stake, it resists every attempt I make. Any suggestions with keeping switchgrass upright?
by PitifulClerk0
Native Plant Gardening
10 Comments
Peony cage
Basically there are too many nutrients in the soil and the grass is growing beyond it’s ability to keep itself upright. Native plants actually grow in incredibly poor soil in highly competitive conditions. I get the same thing. What I have done is either tie it up or just mow it with a shrub trimmer. I am also seeding more stuff into the stuff that flops in the hope that it all kind of holds itself up but that hasn’t happened everywhere yet. Anyway it’s normal
Edit: if you are amending the soil definitely stop doing that. If it was amended for years before (like mine was) eventually it will be exhausted and you’ll have a little smaller grass with deeper roots.
put a hook in the fence on each side of it and pin that sucker up against the fence with a rope
I wonder if doing a chop in spring would help the plant support itself. I know it’s supposed to help with taller flowering plants.
I have found that some prairie plants don’t like their backs to the wall.
I have this issue with my Big Bluestem as well as a few other plants. Wind and the birds eating seeds tend to knock things down. I plan to do some chops on some of the plants to reduce height as well as add in some grow through supports. See if that works next year.
My sedges all did this on their second or third (?) summer. Just all flopped down. I left it alone and eventually new growth started from the center. A couple months in and it’s starting to look fresh and happy again. Not sure if that helps
Another route I could’ve taken is to trim it as some have suggested.
Could be lack of sun.
Is that Dallas Blue? Ours does that in the years where we get heavy rains around bloom time. It’s upright until it makes that last surge, then it’s vulnerable to being flattened. I’m thinking of moving it to somewhere else and replacing it with a switchgrass that is a bit shorter and much more upright.
It’s mainly because large prairie grasses in the wild are surrounded by other large grasses and flowers all lending support to eachother, so when we use them in gardening settings they’re much more prone to flopping over
Do you see all that lovely mulch below the switch grass? That indicates to me that you giving this plant a little much love. You probably gave it the good black nutrient rich soil down there too. Too much love means it’s growing too well, so it’s gonna flop over.
In the true wild, switch grass grows wherever the hell it wants to. Just give it crap soil and it will stop flopping over.
Also, this stuff grows fast. Just hack it in half.