Go Ahead, Cut Away

Is your garden starting to look tired? Have your daylily leaves yellowed and flattened? Have those beautiful blooms turned into brown sticks? Are the tops of your daisies dark and withered?

Well, don't despair.  Many of the plants that you think are finished for the season can rebound. What is needed is a good 'haircut.'

Let me explain.

Years ago a grower told me that the secret to a great looking mid-summer garden is to cut plants back. I thought she was crazy. Certainly my beautiful perennials would suffer from such drastic measures. But, I trusted her opinion. So I went home and cut my daylilies and Siberian iris to the ground.

It was scary, I admit, but the results were amazing. Instantly my garden looked tidier and less crowded.

In June, the iris bloomed deep purple on strong green stems. What followed was a mass of thick green foliage and nothing else.

With just a few whacks of my pruners the tangle of green was gone.

I pulled out the brown, dried flower stalks of my daylilies and then cut the yellowed leaves to the ground.  Within a few weeks both the iris and daylilies had sent up new bright green shoots that soon reclaimed their space in the garden. Many of the daylilies bloomed again. And even though the iris had finished producing flowers, their new leaves looked neat and clean.

Another reason to cut back plants is to keep rampant growers in check. Take for instance a great hardy (perennial) geranium called 'Rozanne.' It produces violet-blue blooms all summer on stems that weave through the other plants in the garden ... and into shrubs, over fences, out into the street. Ok, just kidding about the street.

But you get the picture: 'Rozanne' has no sense of proportion. So, in mid-July I cut the plants back to within 8 to 10 inches of the base. Before you know it, she's back weaving her pretty leaves around in the garden and showing off her gorgeous blue blooms.

Many annuals (impatiens, petunias, trailing verbena) and perennials (nepeta, lysimachia, sedums) get 'leggy' or just too big for their space. When cut back to 3-5 inches, lush new growth follows in a few weeks.

Not all plants can take such drastic measures. Many plants need careful pruning to keep blooming. One method is 'deadheading' (removing single flower stalks) after the blooms have faded to allow more space for the new blooms to develop. 

Another technique for branching, multi-stemmed plants (coleus, salvia, dragonwing begonias) is to cut back the stems of faded blooms to just above the 'V' where a pair of leaves join the main stem. Look closely in that space (the axil) to find a pair of buds that will expand and produce new blooms. This form of pruning is also useful for reducing the overall size of plants.

These methods do not work for all plants, so be sure to check a good reference (Google 'Maintenance of annuals and perennials;' or go to www.finegardening.com) to learn which plants respond to a drastic haircut, which ones will reward you with new growth if you give them a light clipping (selective pruning) and which ones will resent it if you dare to cut them at all. 

On another day we can talk about pinching and thinning.

So, sharpen your bypass pruners, shine up your shears and get to work.

Happy Gardening!