It is mid-summer and your garden looks great… except some of the annual flowering plants that you enjoyed in early summer are beginning to look straggly and tired.
With half of the gardening season ahead of us and lots of sunshine (I assume), this is the perfect time to do some maintenance. Geraniums should simply be deadheaded – the finished flowers removed as they occur. If you have not done this along the way this season there is no time to start like the present.
Petunias and their cousins calabracoa (or ‘Million Bells’) perform best after a hair cut. In extreme cases, I literary cut the long stems of the flowering plants back with a pair of hand pruners or, in the case of window boxes, hedge shears. This encourages the root to push new growth that will flower later in August and September.
Other annuals that flowered earlier on and are now finished benefit from similar, though not necessarily such harsh treatment. Snapdragons, salvia, nasturtiums and other annuals become refreshed with the removal of spent flowers.
Don’t ignore your perennials either. My veronica gets a major hair cut this time of year and I get a reliable second show later in August/September.
I remove the spent blossoms of peonies and daylilies too: this channels the energy of the plant into more foliage and root production, which is all good for their performance in your garden next year.
Mark Cullen
