The BIG Chop

On Groundhog Day — Feb. 2 — Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, ushering in six more weeks of winter. Solanoans hadn’t seen winter YET, save for two days of rain in January.  And, as if to prove Phil totally wrong, Feb. 2 in Vacaville was particularly stunning: About 70 degrees in the sun, thin clouds blowing by in a light north wind.

It was the perfect day to start the Big Chop.

John Greenlee, the grasses guru, suggests an annual buzz cut — he calls it “the Big Chop” — for most ornamental grasses. The grasses in my yard are winter dormant, and by the time Feb. 2 rolled around, were looking downright tatty. In fact, a good many of the plants in my yard look pretty used up by late winter. So I take Greenlee’s advice, and do a major trim on not only the grasses but also the Western natives (such as Copper Canyon daisy, Tagetes lemmonii), herbaceous choices (such as threadleaf coreopsis, Coreopsis verticillata) and Mediterranean plants (like Jerusalem sage, Phlomis fruticosa) scattered throughout the yard.

Greenlee the grasses guy explains that, in their natural settings, grazing animals or wildfire would mow down most of these plants. Winter cold — when it happens — often takes herbs down to the soil line. Since few of those things occur in my yard, I get to stand in for grazers, fire and cold. Makes me feel like Mother Nature’s girl Friday.

The Big Chop takes days. I lucked out this year; Feb. 2, 3 and 4 were beautiful. I filled our green-waste toter within the first three hours, then borrowed several of my neighbor’s unused smaller garbage cans and promptly filled those. Some of the trimmings went into our overstuffed compost piles. There’s never enough space for all the editing my yard requires.

The result: A yard that looks completely different. From bushy to buzzed, tatty to tidy. This annual trim fest also gives me the opportunity to really clean up around these plantings, something I like to do just once a year.

And, in all honesty, my back won’t allow more than one Big Chop a year.