A GARDENING expert has revealed the unique trick she uses on a popular plant.
The green-fingered pro shared the beauty buy she uses to revamp her garden.
Pollyanna Wilkinson (left) explained the simple trick she uses to revamp ‘floppy ponytail grass’[/caption]
Speaking on her podcast The Ins & Outs, Pollyanna Wilkinson answered a listeners query about detangling floppy “ponytail grass.”
“It’s really flopped about and incredibly messing looking now, I’ve heard the well-known TV gardener Monty Don say to cut it back but everything I read says don’t,” the audience member wrote.
They asked the gardening expert for advice, saying they “hate it looking so messy.”
Pollyanna explained to co-host Jojo Barr and their listeners that a quick trick can help the plant, which is officially known as stipa tenuissima.
“I’ve done trial and error with stipa tenuissima, some people call it ponytail grass,” the podcast host said.
“It gets really floppy this time of year and usually that means you haven’t combed it.”
She explained that she uses a £5 Tangle Teaser to tackle the grass plant.
“I recommend it, it’s the best thing you could use on it,” she told her audience.
Pollyanna also discussed the reason why the plant gets so “floppy” at this time of the year.
“The reason it’s flopping is because stipa tenuissima puts out loads and loads and loads of seeds and essentially it’s like a wet matted ponytail,” she explained.
“So what you do is you get a Tangle Teaser and you drag it through and you take out all the seeds and you’ll find that you get a big thick matt of seedheads.
“By doing that you’ll get the grass back to being an actually lovely breezy grass.”
Pollyanna revealed that she has previously tried to cut down the plant.
“You end up looking like you’ve got this shorn Mohican,” she joked.
She explained why this course of action isn’t usually recommended by experts.
October gardening jobs
The Sun’s Gardening Editor, Veronica Lorraine, has shared the jobs you need to tackle in October.
“It’s a good time to trim deciduous hedges – like box, yew, hawthorn, hornbean and beech – plus hedge trimmers are a great upper body workout!
Make leafmould – gather up all the fallen leaves and fill either bin bags or plastic carrier bags. Seal the top, stick a few small holes in the bag – and then store for a year or more. Free compost!
It’s unlikely you’ll get any more red tomatoes so have one final harvest and chuck the plants on the compost. See if you can get the green ones to ripen by putting in a drawer (some say with a banana). Also keep the seeds from a couple – and plant again next year if they went well.
Finish getting in your spring bulbs. Ideally you’d have done daffs and alliums, but tulips are better in the ground when the soil temperature gets a bit colder.
It’s good to leave some plant litter in the ground – it adds to the nutrients as it rots down, and provides shelter and food for insects. But remove the manky brown bits collapsing all over the lawn/winter structure.
Mulch – it not only suppresses weeds, but keeps the soil warm, improves water retention and adds a little winter duvet to your outside space.
October’s a good month for carrots, peas, asparagus, broad beans, and rhubarb.”
“It cuts down but then it doesn’t grow back at a regular rate so you’ve got this stubby little short thing with sort of tufts,” she said.
Pollyanna added that “in the fullness of time they do grow back eventually.”
However, she said that her tip is often best suited if the grass is “very unruly.”
“I’ve found that just brushing them through is far far easier and that tends to solve most problems,” she said.
“You don’t have to wait for it to grow back because it takes some time.”
