On the 10th April, members of the stock bed team hosted Beth Chatto’s first Miscanthus Championship, an Olympic-like event where two teams competed to see who could dig up miscanthus plants the fastest.
The plants are located on our stock beds and were dug up and divided so they could be potted and eventually be sold to one day become a part of your garden. Miscanthus are large grasses which can be difficult to remove because of their deep, rhizomatous root system. It's good to divide them every 3-4 years to maintain robust growth.
With two teams of two, they started by digging out Miscanthus sinensis 'Poseidon' which is a beautiful large grass with broad leaves, pink flowers and lovely foliage colouring in autumn. When digging out miscanthus, it is best to remove the entire clump including all roots. The teams had a row of 6 plants each to dig up and after just 2 minutes and 20 seconds (plus a broken fork), team Marc and Hollie were victorious in round one.
Round two entailed the teams digging up Miscanthus sinensis ‘Beth Chatto’ which has lovely narrow foliage and flowers. After 34 seconds, Miya and Rob were the winners meaning it was a tie breaker. To decide the winner we got both teams to guess the total time of both rounds added up as they had not yet been told.
With only three seconds between their guesses, team Marc and Hollie were the winners and received two wonderful homemade medals as their prizes presented by our head of horticulture Steve. This event was both fun to watch and fun to take part in. It made these often challenging plants fun to propagate and something the team now hope to do every year.
Read on: A guide to taking cuttings
Written by production assistant Megan
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