Grass divisions update
>> Wednesday, December 15, 2010 –
grasses,
overwintering
Ten days ago I took some small divisions of a purple fountain grass, potted them up, and moved them into the basement under lights. It's time for the first update on their progress.
As you can see, much green has appeared. Green is good. I was pretty sure the divisions would do fine, but until I see the first growth emerging I'm never completely sure.
they're putting out new basal growth too:
In some cases, quite a bit of new growth:
The leaves always start out green and then turn purple over time, and these are already starting to darken:
Remember this tiny plant that I potted up as an experiment?
Even it is putting out new growth:
Although not every stalk is actively growing now, all of the plants are alive and well:
Even though I expected all of these plants to survive, it's still quite exciting to see it happen. A relief too, since I thought I may have waited too long and let the parent plant get too cold. I had nothing to worry about though.
Normally I would just give these plants minimal fertilizer and water as I don't want them to grow too much until the spring, but this year I'll give them more of both. I want them to grow more than usual since I'm hoping to divide each plant in half in a couple of months, doubling the number of plants I'll have available for spring planting. Remember, I want to do a mass planting of these beautiful grasses this year.
I'll keep you posted on these and the other plants I'm overwintering.
Even though purple fountain grass typically survives our winters unscathed, I'm tempted to divide a clump now and bring the divisions indoors to give them a head start.