 July is a busy month for the secateur! Lots of early-flowering perennials will have run out of steam, but this doesn't mean they're dying and it doesn't necessarily mean they are done for the year either. Although it can be worth leaving seedheads for the birds in winter, they usually have plenty else to eat at this time of year so you are better off having a tidy-up (unless you are particularly hoping for some free plants - but note some have a much better germination rate than others). Knowing what to do with your plants is infinitely easier if you know what they are, because then you can look it up. It feels very keen, but keep your plants labelled! Failing that, go back in time to see what happened to them in winter. Did they die back to virtually nothing, did they leave a woody framework, or did they just about hang in there with some slightly sad looking leaves? When it comes to perennial pruning, nature is very helpful as your guide, as you will want to mimic this. Why cut back in summer? It's not just about prettying up your borders. Flowers are all about reproduction. Every perennial's New Year resolution is to make flowers, attract pollinating insects to them to do their magic, form seed, make plant babies and then they can die down for the rest of the year. If you cut off the old flowers before they have a chance to set seed, many plants will have another crack at the whole cycle, meaning you get to enjoy a second flush of flowers (and so do the pollinators too).  As a broad rule of thumb, if it's evergreen it's a case of taking out the old flower stems and just removing grotty growth. This includes Euphorbias (wear gloves to avoid getting the sap on your skin), Dianthus (aka garden pinks), Helianthemums (aka rock rose), Geum, Heucheras, Hellebores, Bergenias, Sisyrinchium and Penstemon. Although evergreen, Brunneras and Pulmonarias look better for having everything cut off to a couple of inches.  If it's woody (it's probably technically a shrub) like a Salvia Hot Lips or Perovskia, cut back by half, and trim out any clutter and wonky bits while you're there. Most others will do best cut back to just a couple of inches. Why not just cut off the faded flowers? Because the leaves are usually getting pretty tired and cutting will give you lots of fresh verdant regrowth to enjoy. Plants to get the 'Wimbledon Tournament Trim' (ahem) include, deep breath: Alchemilla, Agastache, Aquilegia (columbine/Granny’s bonnet), Centranthus (valerian), Delphinium, Gallardia, Geranium, Gypsophilia, Lupin, Lychnis, Oenothera (evening primrose), Salvia nemorosa types, Verbascum, Dicentra (bleeding heart), Digitalis (foxglove), Hosta, Lamium, Polemonium (Jacob’s ladder), Alcea (hollyhock), Astrantia, Campanula (bellflower), Centaurea (cornflower), Coreopsis, Knautia, Leucanthemum (Chrysanthemum family), Linaria, Lobelia, Lysimachia, Lythrum, Monarda (bergamot), Nepeta (catmint), Papaver (poppy), Persicaria, Phlox, Potentilla, Physostegia, Sanguisorba, Scabiosa, Stachys, Symphyandra, Tanacetum (tansy), Teucrium, Thalictrum, Tradescantia, Trifolium (clover), Veronica.  With Erysimums (shrubby wallflowers) it depends on whether they are evergreen or not. Most get cut hard but you definitely shouldn't do that to Bowles Mauve. With all perennial pruning, when to cut comes down to personal judgement. If you have the time, remove spent flowers individually, but with plants with numerous small flowers such as Geraniums or Nepetas it is easier to decide the balance between nice and tatty has been tipped and it's time to get the secateurs out. Keep in mind the sooner you do it, the sooner you get the regrowth!  
1 Comment
Don't let the slugs and snails get you down! It's not all about beer traps and copper rings, there are numerous other steps you can take. Make your garden more wildlife friendly by providing ground cover plants and shrubs for beneficial creatures to hide up in, and water to live and drink from. Songbirds will eat the snails; toads, frogs and hedgehogs will eat the larger slugs; and beetles can take care of the smaller ones. Even garden features that sometimes come under flak can help: lawns are useful for birds to use to swipe the slime off slugs before they eat them, whilst other birds will appreciate a small patio areas for cracking snail shells on!
Shade-loving Hostas can suffer from the attention of hungry molluscs, so instead go for ferns, Fuchsias, Heucheras, Hydrangeas, Alchemilla (lady's mantle), Vinca (periwinkle) and Hellebores. Is there any point throwing slugs and snails over the neighbour's fence? Probably only if it's a wilderness. If you don't want to harm them - and of the UK's 120 types of snails and 45 types of slug only a few cause damage to ornamental plants - then the compost heap is the best place to put them. Slugs and snails play an important role in breaking down old vegetation to return nutrients to the soil, so it could be the solution that keeps everybody happy! Need to track them down first though? Check the rims of pots and lay down plastic trays in likely damp and dingy spots for a few days!
Let's be honest, there has not been too much to worry about with the watering so far this year. But in optimism of a better summer, make sure you know what to do in case of watering emergencies!
LEVEL ONE RESCUE Hot sunny days can catch out the best of us, and you can end up with some sad, wilty specimens. What to do? First of all, don’t spend ages stood there pointing the end of a hose at your dried out pot plants. It is a waste of your precious time and of precious water – if the compost has dried out then the water will flush straight through and out the bottom before the roots have had the chance to grab any. Instead, if you can, put the pot into a saucer, a bucket, a washing up bowl or anything that will hold a pool of water. Fill the base of your chosen item with water (an inch depth should be plenty), give the plant a normal watering from above and then leave it there until tomorrow. If your pot is too large to move, maybe a hanging basket, or your wilting plant is in the ground, then you should carry out multiple waterings. Consider the first a ‘pre-soak’ that will just dampen the compost enough to bind it back together. Go off and have a leisurely cup of tea and when you return give another normal watering – this should be much more effective as the compost should now be moist enough to retain the water you give it. If things are looking dire you might want to give a third drink a few hours later. Fingers crossed tomorrow your plant will be right as rain!  LEVEL TWO RESCUE You forgot to water your plant, you tried the life-saving techniques, waited a day, but unfortunately they weren’t enough and you are now staring at a crispy, browning plant. The time has come for drastic measures. If leaves have gone brown then there is no coming back for them. Brown leaves don’t get better so remove them (this rule is relevant for lots of gardening circumstances including black spot, rust, being munched by beasties etc. Green colouring will not magically reappear, holes will not magically refill). However, it is likely your plant’s root system is still fighting strong, so unburden it of useless material like dead stems and leaves so it can concentrate its energies on recovery. If it is a woody plant, cut back to healthy growth. If it is a soft stemmed plant, you are probably better off cutting down the entire plant. For some plants a hard chop can be a ‘do or die’ move, but it is usually the plant’s best chance of healthy survival, and at this time of year you won’t be waiting long for it to grow back.
The simplest way to find out if your plant needs watering is to poke your finger into the soil. The top inch being dry is fine, but if you've got down to two inches and there's still nothing, it's time to water. If it's sodden at the top, hold fire. The amount of water to give is down to numerous variables: a young plant in a large pot will need a lot less than a pot-bound specimen. A plant in shade will need less than one in full sun. If it's raised up on a stand it will dry out quicker in the breeze than one in a sheltered spot. If it's midsummer it's going to have many more hours of sunlight on it than in spring. And some plant families are much thirstier than others. An Acer in a pot will mostly survive on rain, rarely wanting intervention from you, whereas a Lupin could need watering twice a day. Keep doing the poke test and you will soon learn which plants need what.
And finally, make sure you do it properly! The classic jibe from old lags to new nursery workers: “Are you watering those plants or giving them a wash?” The plants want their water at their roots. Splashing it all over the leaves could lead to scorching, increase the chances of fungal diseases, and generally mean the plant can't make full use of the water.
 A commonly made mistake with climbing roses is to leave them to it. But roses flower at the ends of vertical growth, and rose stems will naturally grow straight up towards the sun, leaving you craning your neck up to look at a small spread of blooms. So to get the most out of them, it is up to you the gardener to bend the stems into a more horizontal form. All along these horizontal stems the plant will then create a multitude of short vertical stems that will lead to a stunning wall of roses. The cheapest and easiest way to do this is to screw vine eyes into your wall or fence and attach horizontal support wires through them. It is highly recommended to get these in place before your rose gets to any great size to avoid you being ripped to shreds! Then carefully bend down the stems and secure to the wire with twine, leaving room in the loops for the stem to thicken up over time. Each year in February/March cut back the vertical stems to around three leaf buds/inches above their parent horizontal branch to stop the plant getting unwieldy. If you still want your plant to get higher up the wall, leave a few vertical stems close to the centre of the rose to get long enough for you to bend them horizontally.  The top right half of a trained climbing rose, making use of two support wires 1-2 ft apart.
|
About
Tips by Susie Davis, owner of Katie's Garden and Catherine McMillan, author of Gardening for the Uncommitted. Archives
April 2026
Categories |
- Home
- Visit
- Shop online
- Our Plants
- Flourish
- About
-
Advice
- Garden tips
- Planting Themes
- Videos
- Slug proof
- Rabbit proof
- Deer proof
- Plants for shade
- North-facing walls
- Dry & sandy soil
- Coastal sites
- Exposed sites
- Clay soil
- Damp soil
- Plants for slopes
- Plants for pots
- Evergreen perennials
- Long flowering perennials
- Plants for ground cover
- Flowers for cutting
- Plants for butterflies
- Plants for birds
- Plants for predatory insects
- Plants for Pollinators
RSS Feed