It's Scything Season again!

Yes, it's time to knock down those wildflower meadows!

Here's one of "my" meadows, a long thin garden with mown paths, leaving blocks of long grass.

Most of the blocks have trees in them, which makes it much easier for the mower - they just run round the paths, zoom, zoom! - but a pain in the backside for the scyther (that's me) because I have to carefully go round each trunk, which is fiddly, and takes time.

However, that's all part of being a professional gardener, you have to do what you are paid to do...

If this were my garden, I would not have the grass going all the way round the trees, I'd have each tree in a cleared planting hole, because I believe that trees grow better without the competition of the grass: plus, it means we can see the trunks, and can spot any defects or damage early on.

As a case in point, here is the Acer Grove back in 2019 when it was created: 

There are five dear little Japanese Maples (Acers), planted in a loose arrangement, within one of the wildflower blocks.

The owner chose a nice selection of different leaf shapes, and colours, and we thought it was going to be interesting, to see how they grew in comparison to each other.

You can see by the colour of the grass, that it has recently been scythed: this work was done in the July of that year, and the wildflower blocks had been established for some years before that: the newly-scythed area is always pale and wan, until the newly-cut grass stems have had a chance to recover.

I have continued to scythe this area every year, usually in late July:  carefully going round the Acers, of course.

They haven't really grown a great deal in that time, and earlier this year, when I was working in that part of the garden, I did notice that a couple of them had some dead branches.

But it's been a horrible year or two, weather-wise, and a lot of the decorative Acers are struggling: in my own garden, at home, I lost one of my well-established Acers - cultivar Osakazuki, which I'd had for about ten years, so it was rather sad to lose it.

So I didn't give it too much thought,  and the wildflowers grew up as usual.

Then, last week, I was sent down there with my scythe:

Ooer, what's happened?

The Acer Grove has been completely smothered by the long grass, to the point where you can't actually see the trees!

Alas, closer investigation revealed that two of the trees had died altogether, and the other three were not looking brilliant.

 There was nothing to do, but to pull out the two dead ones, and scythe carefully around the others.

The lesson I take from this is as follows: it is not a good idea to allow the grass to grow right up and around your ornamental trees.

If we'd been able to see them, we would have noticed earlier that they were struggling, and we could have taken steps, which in this garden (with its very light, sandy soil) would have meant mulching and watering.

As it is, they've gone now, and the Acer Grove is somewhat depleted.

I shall have a quiet word with the Client about the possibility of replacing them:  and if we do get some new Acers, I shall see if I can tactfully suggest that we consider making a woodland-style bed around them, mulched with bark or woodchip, perhaps: instead of allowing the grass to grow back all around them.

We shall see...

 

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