Has anyone ever grown rhubarb in pasture grass? What does it look like?

The rhubarb plants I'm growing are growing almost with vertical stems. What does rhubarb look like when it returns to actual pasture grass?

My rhubarb is being encroached by grass in places. The rhubarb leaves do a pretty good job of shading out the grass. BUT that only works because they are already very well established. Planting into grass worked poorly, because there was too much root zone competition. Planting on the edge of a bed with grass adjacent also worked poorly.

I have found that a fairly dense planting of crowns works well because the leaves grow into each other and do a better job of shading the soil. I suspect single crowns would struggle.

Michael Cox wrote:My rhubarb is being encroached by grass in places. The rhubarb leaves do a pretty good job of shading out the grass.

Do you have a picture for reference?

Not sure this will help. I've got rhubarb growing where I can't mow and grasses are naturally returning from when I mulched and planted the area years ago. We want the rhubarb to do well, so when I pick it, I intentionally lay the large leaves I remove down flat around the edge of the plant as a mulch. Rhubarb's a heavy feeder, so I also put leafy mulch around it in the winter, have a Goumi bush near-by, and give it the "P" treatment occasionally.

Do you mean that you planted rhubarb and now want pasture to return? Or did something "rhubarb-like" show up in your pasture? If so, have you confirmed it's rhubarb? We have burdock here (root is good medicinally and helps break up clay and chickens will eat some of the leaves, but not their favorite). It has similarities to rhubarb, but is definitely a different plant - hairier for one, paler stock colour, and yes, a more upright growth pattern. Its seed pods are what inspired velcro, and can be quite annoying, so I'm trying not to  let too much go to seed. However, as a mulch, compost additive, clay buster, and soil builder, I'm not prepared to eliminate it at the moment. People with sheep do!

ETA - do you want me to take pictures of each and post them?

I took 30 crowns from an ancient plant growing on the edge of an abandoned orchard it was spread out and sprawling.

I put a border of them around my garden and they grow both upright and sprawling, I also put some out in the pasture with no prep or care given to them and they are doing well but not as good as the ones in the garden.

Marc Dube wrote:I took 30 crowns from an ancient plant growing on the edge of an abandoned orchard it was spread out and sprawling.

I put a border of them around my garden and they grow both upright and sprawling, I also put some out in the pasture with no prep or care given to them and they are doing well but not as good as the ones in the garden.

I'd love to see a picture, because I'm trying to get the grass killed off, and have the rhubarb take over.

I'm thinking about running 50-100 giants chickens for the summer in the area to kill off the grass, and thistle that's taking over where I raised the soil with wood chips.