The reality
Advice tells us to cut back our perennial plants with the May Chelsea Shop or the June Hampton Hack. Why and when do we do this and what if we don’t?
Here in London the front garden has gone from gorgeous abundant profusion to a bit of a dry collapse but I’m thinking it still looks lovely enough to leave it and so far I’ve resisted cutting everything back.
The borders currently look like this and I wrote more about the garden earlier in the month here
A lovely jumble of hardy geraniums, veronicastrum and lemon verbena
It’s lovely but with some heavy rain and then some sun the whole pack of cards is really collapsing. So it really is time to cut back.
Here’s a patch I cleared of just one sprawling plant. There’s a nice gap that I can enrich with my compost and then pop in some new plants. Thus small area by small area I can rejuvenate the soil and the planting rather than cut it all down around the same time.
A new space for a new plant
The rest of that narrow path border looks like this
hardy geraniums line the path
The path is messy and I love it but as our trousers get more wet every time we walk down it, I am going to have to cut these things right back to the edge of the path. You’d be amazed how these plants are hiding about 18 inches of path on each side.
Fast regrowth
This Brunnera in the centre of the photo below grew new fresh leaves within 6 days of my shearing it down to the ground. That’s what some plants can do – pulmonaria, geraniums, omphaloides, alchemilla mollis,, campanula, and many others no doubt. Be brave. Just do it.
Brunnera sheared back
Two weeks later it looks like this
Brunnera
A good watering really helps them re-grow so when I see rain coming I pop outside and cut some things down.
Why cut back at all? Good question.
Well since nothing stays the same in a garden and plants are always growing or decaying, cutting foliage down gives a fresh green look rather than a brown shrivelled look. It gives the plant a boost to get growing. Here’s a cut back patch looking bare but in 2 weeks it’ll be a mass of fresh green.
A lovely new bare patch with addded compost – the plants will be back within days
Balance
A loose cottage garden style will be a balance between beauty and mess. We all have a difference tolerance level for mess. In my garden I like lots of messy chaotic unpredictable jumble but wouldn’t like too much of that in the rest of my life.
Cutting back also reveals the things that have died under the messy growth. I dig them up wondering what they were – so full of promise at the garden centre but……….
So when rain is forecast, get out there and be bold.
Lastly I have exciting news about ground elder. The wonderful Alys Fowler has written an article about letting it grow and not bothering to see it as an overwhelming problem. In manageable doses it looks very pretty so I’ve decided to let mine grow and just change my atttitude to it. You can read that here
Well done article….even if I am applying it to my San Diego cottage garden. Always difficult to get the courage to cut back….but with patience, a garden is rewarded.
Thankyou Anne. How lovely to have a cottage style garden in that lovely city. Courage and patience are exactly what we gardeners need in spades. (sorry).
A really lovely, practical piece – bound to give courage to hesitant hackers. It seems that you and I see eye to eye about a lot.
Oh thanks so much Helen. I have your Gardening in Pyjamas to hand and read a bit every day. you gave me some good advice a few years ago at Chenies Manor too. I’ve been out in the rain today cutting back some more and quite an experiment to have waited till now rather than doing it a few weeks ago. Feels so nice to have my blog efforts appreciated and to hear they are useful.
Cutting back the hardy geraniums really changes the colour balance in my garden – I missed the intense blue of them (maybe ‘Johnson’s Blue’) so much that I just had to buy extra ‘Brookside’, which flowers bluely later into the season, countering the ambience sliding into ‘too much pink and purple’. But it’s great how once cut they so quickly put up healthy new leaves. Such a prince among plants.
Oh yes, we can’t beat them in this style of gardening, can we. I’m not a fan of dahlias or summer bedding, I just love good old hardy geraniums. Blue ones especially as you say. Thankyou so much for sending the comment.
Greetings from Dublin; you have inspired me to do more of this Julie. I have always cut back pulmonarias, early flowering hardy geraniums and the edging of small campanulas that runs along our patio raised border. But I haven’t done it before with brunnera (2 large clumps of ‘Jack Frost’ now beginning to lose their silvery colouring) or omphalodes. I’ll just have to remember to save some garden compost for this job in future, as I used it all up with spring mulching. Thanks for such a practical inspirational post.
What a lovely comment Joan, Thankyou so much. Jack Frost responds very well and I find the leaves look very tatty several times during the year but when I chop them off they are back in no time. Omphaloides – well mine could certainly do with a trim but do I have the courage to cut them back – I think they’ll be ok, I suppose I just have to do it to some not all and see what happens. I’ll make a note of what happens. best wishes, Julie (lucky you living in Dublin).
Hi Julie. I’ve just signed up for your blog and I’ve enjoyed reading your two July posts. Do you grow Day lilies? I love the flowers and I never find the daily dead heading a chore, but I hate it when the flowers finish and the leaves begin to flop and look tatty. Is there anything I can do to make the plant look better? I’ve read that you shouldn’t cut the foliage back so are there any other options? Any advice you can give me will be gratefully received. Many thanks.
Hello again Barbara, no I have never grown day lilies as I don’t have room for such fleeting flowers – best to google the question and see what the experts say. Nice of you to ask though and I hope you find a good answer. Thanks for signing up to the blog – it is nice to know there are people out there reading it! Best wishes, Julie