Midsummer strategies

It would sure be helpful to me to find out how you clean up your spent perennials. I find many garden books to be noticeably silent on when to cut back, how hard to cut back, what to expect after you cut back, etc. My main show is about done and I am in the midst of cutting most things back fairly hard. While it does clean things up quite a bit, I'm wondering if I'm a bit too aggressive.

For example, my feverfew is still blooming heavily but starting to fall over. I usually cut this back to 6" about this time and it resprouts fairly good foliage and sometimes a second bloom.

Lemon balm has flowered (such as it is) and was getting pretty tall (about 4'). I cut it back to about 2.5', pretty much below the flowering part. Also cut back wayward stems growing sideways into paths.

Lovage is going to seed and well over 10'. I will likely whack that back to healthy lower leaves, probably 2'.

Comfrey just fell over for the 2nd time so it gets cut back to 6" again.

Lambs ear - my early spring experiment of nipping off every other flowering stalk went well. I've just cut all the flowering stalks back to the quick and in the clump that I 'thinned' early on, there is a good solid flush of thick under leaves. In the clump I did nothing to, the under leaves are very sparse. I think next year I will pre-cut 2 for every 1 I leave standing.

Snow-in-summer had some stray blooms, but the lower part was all dried out and brown, so I cut that back to 3".

Forget-me-nots and johnny-jump-ups: whatever is still hanging in is getting yanked out. I'm sure they have already reseeded themselves.

Borage I'm pulling freely, leaving the younger still upright ones.

The dogs laid in one catmint and it is apparently unwilling or unable to recover so I cut that back to 6".

Crocosmia is in full flower, but I know it's tendency to fall into the pathways - any suggestions of a companion planting to help boost it up a bit. I've paired it with daylily, oregano, shasta daisy, and lemon balm with fairly good success. Maybe asters? (I've adopted my general parenting style with my flowers -- I'll baby you until you're grown, then you have to stand on your own two feet.)

I will also follow with interest the "what's blooming now" thread to rethink some of my plantings so I have better overlap of bloom. My gardens tend to peak in April-June, then go into a slowish decline through August. I do like fall when everything blends together again.

You actually allow lemon balm? It's one of my worst weeds!

Bone, I noticed in another thread you mentioned single hollyhocks. I have a yellow and a pinkish/apricot. I would be happy to save seeds for you. You may need to remind me you're the one who wanted them. Mine aren't even open and blooming yet, so it's usually not til fall til the seeds are ready.

I planted doubles this year for the first time. (The singles have been here since we moved in.) I hope they do well and bloom next year. I planted yellow, apricot/pink, dark purple, and white.

One of the best books about when and how to cut back perennials is this one: http://www.timberpress.com/books/well_tended_perennial_garden/disabato-aust/9780881928037
It has more detailed information about different perennials than any other book I've seen.

This is a timely thread. I was just going to start one asking if people had ever cut hostas back hard this time of year. Mine are so slug-ugly this year I'm just about ashamed to look at them. The leaves that are not slug eaten are sunburned. Does anyone have experience with cutting them back hard, then giving them a side dressing of composted manure or fertilizer and plenty of water until they leaf out again? In theory, I think it will work but I don't know if it's going to leave holes in the beds for a long time during the growing season.
ials:
Bonehead, I think you grow more herbs than I do, but here is the treatment I give some specific perennials. I do tend to be an aggressive cutter-backer, too, because I just hate it when they start looking ragged.
Pulmonaria - leaves begin to look ratty this time of year. I cut them to the ground, compost, and water. New flush of leaves is smaller but stays neat and pretty until winter.

I like lilies with crocosmia. Also daylilies, like you. I do stake but instead of making a big deal of it, I just put cheap bamboo stick into it, crisscrossing them like the letter 'x'. It's very easy and holds them just fine.

Oriental poppies - all leaves cut to ground, then water. I don't compost them. New flush of leaves same as pulmonaria.

Geraniums - cut back hard, or if they are still going nicely, cut 1/3 of stalks back, then another third later, etc.

Siberian iris - cut leaves to about 6 inches. Fill hole in garden with annuals, or not.

Rock arabis - cut back. It seems to resent this and takes awhile to come back out, but I do it anyway.

Heucheras - flowers off, ratty looking leaves off.

Variegated or red dock - cut way back.

Daylilies - I dislike the look of lots of dead leaves in the daylily clumps so I use my fingers as a rake to pull those out. It's not cutting back, but 'tidying' I guess.

This time of year I also cut the catmint back hard. I'll cut back 1/3 of the plant at a time over the next month to keep the show going and the keep a filled in plant. I also begin cutting the lavender back when the flowerhead are finished.

Are there specific plants you have questions about? Frankly, I could go on and on and maybe none of these plants are anything you have in your garden.


Gwen, I wish I could grow hollyhocks. I've tried many times only to pull them out in disgust when they, as babies, get covered with rust.

I just let them look ugly and let them be natural. Then they thrive next year. they need energy in their roots.

Au naturelle, eh, Sofer? LOL! Are you talking about all perennials, or only one in particular?

Mine do okay. Little to no rust. So maybe my seeds are a rust-resistant strain!

Pix, I've chopped slug-tattered hostas down hard in August before, and they did start to leaf again right away, just not real vigorously. But in the spring they really exploded with new growth and looked fantastic.

Same with me on the hostas. The deer eat them and they don't really make a comeback. Ruth just cut off all the eaten leaves so I will see how they do now.

Example of the hosta. Still blooming but no leaves.

I leave them all Melissa. The one you refer to is au-natural every night. The rest are through the summer.

Well I'm thinking I'm going to at least remove the worst leaves and maybe cut some of them back just to see what happens in my garden. They look so bad I have nothing to lose. My neighbor's garden wedding, which has taken all my time, is today, so I will actually have some time to spend in my own garden now.

It's the lingularia in my garden that looks awful. Very lacy leaves and gross looking flowers coming up. I hate orange also, so I'm going to pull it out and give it to someone. I'm sure there are several plants in there. I'm going to bring a hardy fuchsia around from the back to replace it.

I have two ligularias - one is tattered and disgusting looking, and the other is relatively unscathed. Wonder if it's the location or the cultivar that makes a difference. The Rocket is OK (north exposure), Othello is a mess (east exposure). Knock on wood...my hostas have also been largely left alone by the slugs this year (north again). ??

Wonder why the exposure would make a difference in slugs eating something! I love ligularia but the ones I've planted havne't lived. Perhaps not enough water as I didn't have the irrigation at the time.

Gwen -- no clue if that has anything to do with it or not, just making observations. So strange that most others have been so hard-hit on the hostas while mine are pretty much OK. Who knows how a slug thinks.

Could just be that that is where they hang out. I know certain areas of my yard have more slugs than others.

Continuing cleanup: severe cutback to centuareas, raked daylilies, pulled out spent flowers of ground cover sedums.

Any idea what to do with field poppies? Mine are still blooming (not as thickly) and sending out more bloom pods, but also starting to ripen their seedpods. I don't particularly want these to reseed as they are too tall for where they are at, so I'm either pulling them out entirely or cutting back to about 8", hoping they will continue to try to flower.

Beneath them are calendulas which are struggling for light, and I do want those to reseed.

I just did a brutal cutback on my mallows, too. They had gotten so huge they just sprawled all over the whole end of the bed. I hope they'll come back and give me more blooms- I do love them.

We have wild marsh mallows growing along the river's edge and they have naturalized around our pond, too. Some are white and others are a lovely pink.

Gwen, if you have single-flowered hollyhock seeds I'd love to have a few. I keep trying to establish them here, but they just don't come back. I'm thinking that the black mulch that the lawn service puts down in the spring may be smothering them, though. How do you all handle mulching your perennial beds? At one point I even had some hollyhock seeds that someone had brought back from Giverny, but those are long gone!

How do you all deadhead your penstemons (or do you)? Do you cut back entire flower stalks once the blooms die back, or deadhead individual blooms on the stalks?

I just cut off the part that blooms and then clean up the rest after the frost.

I cut the entire flower stalks off.

Hi Pony. Doesn't matter how. You can just leave it to go to seed if you want. I found a Butterfly bush that i had started. It is over a foot tall and I will mail it to you when the weather cools.

Oooh! Thanks, Willow! :)

I just go and cut them off when it looks the leaves are dead. Except Crocosmia, I cut seedpods off as the last flower blooms, as I need no new Lucifer anywhere.

Amen to that.

I'll definitely save hollyhock seeds!

If you do, I'd love some, Gwen. Any suggestions as to why mine don't come back? What's your environment like where you have yours, and do you mulch in the spring?

MIne were here when we moved in. They are right by the driveway in a crowded area. Maybe they like the car exhaust! I don't know what their zone is. Are you too cold? Mine do not get much water other than the fact that we live in the pnw. I do have irrigation which is new this year. We'll see if I drown them with love. Maybe I won't run the irrigation to them. I do hand water them when it's really hot out and they start to droop. They aren't in an area with scorching sun altho I see them around town in pretty sunny conditions.

I planted about 9 double hollyhocks this year. So far they look real good and I look forward to blooms next year. They will be my first doubles.

My singles jumped this year and I now have a couple stalks in a new area adjacent to the driveway. Actually they must have jumped last year as they will bloom this year. My hollyhocks just started blooming a couple days ago, so not all are opened yet.

I haven't mulced the area by the driveway where the hollyhocks are. I do mulch in the area where they jumped to, which is also an area I planted some of the doubles.

Thanks, Gwen. I do think that the lawn crew may have overmulched and killed what few poor hollyhocks I had left. I'll have to watch that for next year. We are not too cold for hollyhocks. I used to work at a psychiatric hospital which was a former almshouse - it even had the word chiseled into the stone above the door. It had the loveliest hollyhocks that came up by themselves year after year. The soil may have been sweeter than mine, though.

I can save you some HH seeds, also. I will go look to see what I have blooming. The HH's that I Wintersowed bloomed first year for me.

Thanks! Are they singles or doubles, Lynn? And when did you wintersow them? I should try that.

Leslie

I have both. I W/S them around Feb or March, and planted them out in May, I think. I will take some pictures later today and post them.

I've never wintersowed. But I do start my tomatoes from seed and usually begin in March. Interesting that that would give you a year's jump with hollyhocks!