Mowing at The Confluence

By Arborist, Jared Manzo

This is probably not news to our regular visitors and supporters, but Blandy Experimental Farm, and the State Arboretum of Virginia within, is rather unique. As an ecological field station, it is unusual to be open to the public every day. As a public garden, it is unusual to dwell on landscape goals beyond aesthetic. Furthermore, access is very different for each. The former requires merely crude paths and roads to get personnel and equipment to research sites. The latter demands manicured spaces to get visitors up close with plants and garden beds. Herein lies a challenge at the confluence of access, beauty, and conservation. 

The focus here is how this confluence informs how we cut the grass across the landscape. Some areas we do not cut at all. Some areas are bushhogged once, twice, or three times a year depending on the management situation. Some areas are “finished” mowed weekly or biweekly.  The native plant meadows at the center of the arboretum are predominantly burned on a three-year rotation. That’s it! Those are the prescriptions, but in action they create an ever-evolving landscape aesthetic around the wheel of the year.

Spread across three to four of our grounds staff, any given week during the growing season, we might be cutting around forty hours collectively.  The wear and tear on mowers keeps our mechanic busy.  Our goal is to cut the whole property every two weeks. Of course, this varies by rainfall month to month. During 2024 drought period, we didn’t cut for eight weeks. Conversely, in 2018, we never stopped mowing April through October. In fact, it was during the remarkable rainfall of 2018 that opened our eyes toward restraint. During this period, some areas of the arboretum could not be cut for over a year because it was too wet. Beauty and the time-savings were acutely noted.

Large areas inside the 172-acre arboretum are now bushogged once or twice a year to control unwanted woody plants from establishing. But for access, we will cut a path through it. We also experiment with smaller patches of unmowed areas which help bring people closer to trees in the collection, guide visitor movement through the landscape, add contrasting textures, keep motorists from parking cars outside of designated areas, and allow our small grounds staff to spend more time on arboretum collection maintenance. And depending on the plant palette and size of the unmowed space, wildlife will certainly appreciate it as well.  Thoughtfulness is at forefront here while ensuring we aren’t tripping over ourselves to get the job done. For homeowners with larger yards to manage, this can be applied, but you do need some way of cutting thick growth. This could be a tractor-pulled brush-mowing deck, a riding lawn mower with enough power, a better-equipped neighbor, or even a scythe. Honestly, the hardest part is establishing the unmowed areas in April and May.

Where, when, and how this confluence emerges can change every year. Enjoy a visit in June to see how this has taken shape in 2026.