Question: In the gardening calendar, you mentioned pruning ornamental grasses. Is pampas grass an ornamental, and if so, how much should I prune? Mine would still look nice if they were not pruned.

This is an encore column by Robert Stiffler. The following questions originally were published in 1990. Q. Information on pampas grass would be helpful, including the appropriate time to trim back the ...

Q: I got my husband to trim our pampas grass back to about eight inches above the ground four weeks ago to get rid of the dry dead part. My husband says that we should not have done that because the ...

Q: I have some pampas grass which is dead in the center. Does cleaning it out promote additional growth there? Steve Stern, email A: This is a common problem with pampas grass. It is almost ...

Tie tall grasses into bundles before trimming to reduce cleanup. Trim invasive or fire-prone varieties in fall to control spread and lower fire risk. As with lawn grasses, there are both warm-season ...

Growth habit: An upright perennial with long, narrow saw-tooth-edged leaves forming plants growing to 8 feet tall and wide. Plantings produce tall plumes of white to pink flowers starting in August.