My experience with Carex is that it looks horrible in the spring after cutting back, but once it get past this ugly duckling phase it fills in nicely and looks great the rest of the year. They required cutting back every year, and every year I had to put on the blinders and just be patient -- it sometimes took a while for them to fill in. But yea -- if they're in a prominent spot I would either re-locate or toss.

Not all Carex are the same! 'Feather Falls' is a cultivar of Carex oshimensis and is considered evergreen. Evergreen ornamental grasses do not "require" cutting back. In fact, cutting them back hard can set them back to the point where they never regain their vigor and will fade away to nothingness.

If looking funky in spring, simply use a hand rake to comb through the grass fronds and remove those that have loosened over winter or died off.

I have grown any number of different evergreen sedges/carex over the years and have never ever cut them back. It is never a requirement for an evergreen grass.

It was entirely dead, garden gal. The deer had eaten the centers out and what was left was dead. Cutting it back was the only option.

The deer had eaten the centers out

Well, that's interesting!! Deer generally avoid any ornamental grasses and especially sedges/carex with their sharp edges.

Well, gardengal, the deer here hadn't read that warning. In this very small town, the deer population is far worse than it was 4 miles out in the country. They also eat Iberis to the ground; it's green, looks tempting. I covered several with netting, but when the snow/ice pressed it down into the plants, they ate whatever was sticking out above it.

My Feather Falls lived happily for two winters in an above ground container. It does look rough in spring, even here in zone 8/9, but not bad enough to cut, mostly just a combing as gardengal says. When we moved to a new place I brought it along, ripped it out of its container, where it was growing with Cupressus Wilma Goldcrest, and planted it in the ground. It did absolutely nothing last summer despite abundant fertilizer and daily water.....just sulked.

This spring it finally is on the road to recovery, and looks pretty good, but still smaller than it was in the container two years ago. Performance is likely to be worse in zones 6/5, I can see needing to cut back quite a bit in those climes. I seem to remember Jim Putnam on YouTube having to partially cut back his really ugly spring carex, he's in SE US, also zone 8 I think.

"Evergreen" is a misnomer in terms of perennials up here in the north. Snow, ice, and wind beat up "evergreen" perennials to the point the foliage so tattered it needs to be cut off. This includes hellebores, bergenia, liriope, etc, and yes carex. They're all perfectly hardy here but require a spring cut-back to look their best.

I know that well, porkchop. We were zone 5A when I moved here, now nearly 7 with eccentric highs and lows. Weather forecast says it's going to be high summer temps for the next week or so--mid 80s with as high as 60 at night. Those temps would have been a hot summer 50 years ago. The trees are not yet leafed out and neither are many shrubs. In the woods, the Virginia Bluebells are just beginning to bloom, the late daffs just beginning to show buds.

No rain in sight either.