asparagus ferns too tall

Please help me! My asparagus plants are about 7 feet tall! They are flopping over into the grass and I'm afraid they're going to come out of the dirt! I planted 2 yr old crowns last Apr. so this spring I picked about 1/2 and let the rest go to fern like I've read. I also read to not cut the ferns until early spring. These things are unsightly. (I can't find the cable to upload a picture) So does anybody know if I can cut them maybe halfway down? I appreciate it.

Better to prop them up. They'll never do well if you cut them down.

I agree with LTilton - from what I have read, they should not be cut back until they have dried. My first year, I cut them back after they had dried, but before winter - many of the crowns died.

Last year, I didn't cut them back until early spring - more crowns died, but fewer than the year before. I think the very cold winter we had 2009/2020 got them!

I plan to move the bed to a better spot!

I'm sorry about your crop Honeybee. Yes-it was a very cold winter. Thank you both for your advice. Now what to use to prop them up?

It was a cold winter but... asparagus does fine up here in the far north, so it doesn't seem that the weather you had should have killed the crowns. I always cut my down in the late fall, sometimes they're still green at that point, but I've read you should clean up the bed in the fall so the asparagus beetles have less chance of overwintering in the debris. HoneyBee, I'm sorry to hear you're having such problems, asparagus is normally pretty easy to get going! The biggest problem I've had with it is that the first place I planted got taken over by weeds, so I ended up moving the crowns after a few years to another spot in my garden that was pretty weed free (and I'm pretty diligent about keeping it that way). And I watch for the asparagus beetles and dust the plants at the first sign of them, or they will really wreck the plants. Maybe asparagus just doesn't like the south!

I have the same problem with the ferns. I started out by driving in 5 ft wooden stakes and using binder twine to contain the ferns, but I think I'm going to go to metal fenceposts with baling wire as stronger.

I had no idea they got that big. I had the idea they only got about 2' tall. I bought some crowns on impulse, never having seen them grow and not having a bed prepared. Then I find out they like alkaline soil. My soil is so acidic it's a wonder the cukes don't grow out as pickles. I've got them in pots until I figure out what to do with them. They're sending up little spears to tease me.

Twiggy, don't remember what thread, but I read earlier today that someone was growing it in containers.

Shouldn't hurt to top them off - there would still be lots of foliage left.

Thanks msrobin. If they'll be happy in a pot that takes the pressure off for now.

Weedwhacker - Although it was a cold winter, there were some spells that were warmer. I'm wondering if the warm-cold-warm-cold cycles were to blame for the die-off.

The bed gets the direct North/East wind - it doesn't come from that direction very often, but when it does, the wind gets funneled between out neighbors house and our own. The asparagus in the high-end of the bed were the ones that died - those on the other end are okay.

I'm hoping to move the bed to an area where the NE wind isn't a factor.

I photographed my asparagus ferns this morning...

I guess it's a long way from zone 7 to zone 4 -- my harvest is just hitting prime time!

;-)

Weewhacker - and my harvest is about over :( We had a great crop this year!

Honeybee-how old are your plants? They aren't nearly as tall as mine or as fat! Some of mine are more than an inch in diameter. I finally had to tie bundles of them together so I could mow around them!

I fence my ferns with bamboo poles to keep then upright, they don't need a lot of support. Ric

homers - I put them in as two year old crowns. This is my fourth season, and the second for actually picking any.

I let the thin spears turn to ferns as I thought they might have grown from seed volunteers. I ate the fat ones :(

I grow my asparagus in containers because we have a severe gopher problem in my area. My cats do their best to thin the population, but my neighbors seem to breed them on purpose ;-)
And gophers love aparagus roots almost as much as we and the snails love the shoots! The snails will mow them down so fast you won't even know they were trying to come up.
Mine are in a corner where they can lean on the fence on one side and a tool shed on the other.

good idea HollyAnnS to use bamboo poles. I get so much wind that I'm afraid they wouldn't work for me. My garden is in a very exposed area-well, my whole back yard is, really.