My Poor Zebra Grass – Too Much Snow! And Maybe Too Much Fertilizer?

We have gotten a lot of snow and ice and icy snow this winter.  My poor zebra grass (Miscanthus) is showing the effects!  Here it is all sprawled over coated with ice.  It looks like a sad sea creature washed up on shore.

Ornamental Grass After Ice Storm

This grass is vigorous and picks itself up after the ice melts or the snow slides down.  But after all the snow we have had this winter it’s looking a little worse for wear.

Miscanthus After Too Much Snow

How much snow did we get? This is mid last week.

Zebra Grass Under Too Much Snow

We tried Miscanthus in the garden at our old house but it was too shady. The grass here is planted in a round garden island covered with lava rocks in the middle of the driveway. It gets several hours of full sun plus the rocks and concrete keep it warm.

In 2012, our first summer here, was horribly hot and our grass bloomed in August and looked good all winter. The summer of 2003 was cooler, pleasant and the grass bloomed later and the blooms were a little scant. The other difference is fertilizer. I put a little strong fertilizer on in 2012, probably 2-3 times during the summer, plus we watered. In 2013 I used Spray and Grow combined with a liquid fish-based fertilizer every week, plus the stronger stuff every month or so. Spray and Grow is a micro nutrient product that when combined with the fish fertilizer is supposed to help flowers (and presumably grass) bloom and grow. Dave suggested that we may have overdone it. Maybe the foliar based Spray and Grow plus Bills was enough without the stronger chemical fertilizer.

I checked both Parks and White Flower Farm but neither mentioned danger of too much fertilizer. It is a reasonable theory though. The grass parts were strong, full of life. We just didn’t have as many blooms. One result of too much fertilizer on plants like gallardia is to have too much foliage and not many flowers. Maybe ornamental grasses are the same way. We’ll try less fertilizer this summer!

After all, the best garden is always the next one!

Text and photos copyright Kathy Eickholt, January 2014.