Four reasons to chop away!
1 Spring flowerers can be persuaded to have another go at blooming. Cutting back old stems (as long as they haven’t set seed) can mean they’re encouraged to grow fresh foliage and try flowering again. Plus it neatens them all up nicely.
2 You can delay and lengthen the flowering period of many of your plants. Untrimmed plants will flower earlier as usual, but selecting a few areas or individual stems of perennials to chop back means those ones will flower later, extending the life of your borders. Foxgloves are a great example – trim off its main spike before it sets seed and it may come back later on in summer with blooms again. Cut just above its developing sideshoots.
3 It’ll make many of your plants stronger, more compact and bushy, and therefore they’ll be less likely to flop over and go rangy when they’re exhausted at the end of their season. This is best for late summer-flowering perennials – early to midsummer flowerers may not appreciate it and not recover in time.
4 You’ll get more flowers overall for an impactful display. They may be a bit smaller than if you’d left the plants alone, but they’ll be numerous and look lovely.
A group of mona rda growing brightly on shorter stems tha nks to the Chelsea Chop!