Garden Pic of the Day: Pink Pampas

 My pink pampas is actually just beginning to put up it's gorgeous pink plumes---this picture below is how it looked last year!

I've nicknamed it "Pink Floozy."

It's far more prosperous then it's sister opposite it and a stronger pink. It must have put up over 20 heads!
And she's loving all the rain we're getting right now, considering pampas is actually a desert plant.

However beautiful it looked, I learned the hard way last year that letting it have that many heads is a bad idea. It made it top-heavy and the first gusty thunderstorm in early Sept blew it right over!

So to prevent this little problem, I've decided to limit it to around seven fronds----enough to look pretty, but no so many to make it

 top-heavy. I snipped the excess out this past Monday.

Because this one and the other are so close to the property line, I take extra care to keep them neat. This means getting down under the cascading fountain of blades to trim along the base. Those blades are wicked sharp, too, with a saw-edge that will give you a nice little cut a bit worse then a paper cut. I wear long sleeves and gloves when I handle them and even so, have still walked away with a cut on my forehead I didn't even know I'd gotten (a blade snuck in between my hat and bandanna head-band to give me a nice  a 1/2 cut at the hair line I never even felt.) and, more recently, gave my skin between my nose and upper lip a good burn, though not an actual cut.

I have 3 others elsewhere that aren't on the properly line I don't have to worry about, except to trim them off in winter.

Still, every year when I see my Pink Floozy's lovely blooms, I feel all the trouble entirely worth it.

Come back to tomorrow for Mama Kat Prompt Thursday--topic will be favorite meals growing up!