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Monday - December 19, 2011
From: San Antonio, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Pruning, Seasonal Tasks, Grasses or Grass-like
Title: Burning back Gulf Muhly instead of trimming from San Antonio
Answered by: Barbara Medford and Joe Marcus
QUESTION:
A few years ago I noticed that the Center burned back its Gulf Muhly rather than cutting it back. Did that study result in any conclusions or recommendations?ANSWER:
From Joe Marcus, the Wildflower Center's Collections Manager and a member of the Mr. Smarty Plants Team:
"We’ve had so much rain lately that most burn bans have been lifted, at least temporarily. You’d have a hard time getting anything at all to burn outside right now.
Gulf muhly has responded well to burning for us. You would want to burn it – carefully, of course, in January or February."
We want to caution that this is the situation now. We are expecting more drought and heat, so use common sense-if everything around is tinder dry, the wind is blowing or there is other vegetation close by, we recommend NO FIRE, but hand shearing the grass.
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