After months of steady growth, the asters were reaching for the sky, with an average height of about 54 inches. Time to act.
Last year, some of the asters were trimmed too late, almost completely eliminating their flowers. Others were done earlier, resulting at a solid floral display held below eye height. Untrimmed, the plants grow tall, then flop over.
Although we call this a meadow, it’s really a garden in the form of a meadow. There are no large herbivores to graze it. The plant species, while native, would not necessarily occur together in the same meadow. Some of them might be native to our area, but this doesn’t mean we could hop into a time machine, go back 1,000 years and find them growing in this exact spot.
As a garden, it needs maintenance to look its best. Invasive weeds get pulled, overly rambunctious plants get trimmed or pulled where they’re outcompeting more restrained species, and new plants get plugged in for testing from time to time.
The end result is a more diverse looking meadow. The Deschampsia caespitosa again has its own space. Other plants shaded by the asters are now visible. The milkweed isn’t in competition and once again basks in full sun.
At 20″ after trimming, the plants aren’t exactly short. They have plenty of leaves; there’s no bare spot where the plants were. The only real difference after trimming is that all the meadow’s plants are easily visible from nearby. The plants will quickly sprout from the stems, with four months to develop buds, flower and attract butterflies in September.
The plants will get one more major cutting back after they’re dormant, this time within inches of the ground. All of the cut stems either go into the main compost heap or are cut up and tucked under the meadow plants. Nothing goes into green waste, keeping all the nutrients right here where they belong and eliminating the need for fertilizer.