Extending Your Plant's Blooming Period

With my flowering plants blooming way too early so far, I had to take some measures to curb their development and guarantee me a later (or in some cases an extended) blooming. I do this to a lesser degree every year bit this year I will have to be a bit more ruthless, as the weather conditions are so unusual and causing my plants to behave in an odd manner.

Candidates are things like Phlox, Heleniums and Sedums. Some folks say any flowering plant, but I am more selective.
There are two basic methods:
(1) Cutting back half of the stems in a stand (clump or bed). This gives you some blooms at their regular blooming time, and a second flush later on in the season.

(2) Cutting back all of the stems. The Sedum is a good candidate for this because if you have ever grown this plant, you knopw that eventually the stems will grow tall enough to become topheavy and splay, or flop about, giving not an attractive presentation. One will then require some sort of corralling method--with twine or a plactic "wagon wheel" type device.
If one clips the stems off, then the plant will keep growing and you will have a plant that is less tall and the stems will remain standing erect without support.

This management technique will give you shorter plants but more and later blooms.
It is performed around the last week or two in May. All you need is a nice, sharp pair of sècateurs and a strong will.

One question is how much should I cut off? The answer to that depends upon the reason that you are doing this procedure, what you want to achieve and how hard-hearted you can be. The latter is always the toughest. I always find it uncomfortable to lop off the stems when I can see buds forming.
I generally do not cut off more than 1/3 of a stem. Some folks do cut plants back almost to the ground. I have never done that to any plant of mine.

Folks here have been using this procedure for as long as anyone can remember, and as far as I know, there is no special name for it here--but the British do have a name for it. It's called "the Chelses Chop" because it is done on or after the famous Chelsea Flower and Garden Show. You know...the one that EJ recently visited.

Here is my Sedum before I had laid a finger on it.

Here you can perhaps see the two levels of the stems. The cut stems are on the foregrond of the plant and those stems still to be clipped are on the back side of the plant.

Finally, you can see the finished job.


This technique may not be for everyone, but perhaps someone will want to try it to see if they can extend their blooming period this year.
I will only suggest that if your heart isn't in it, but you are curious to try--then just try it with a few plants and that way you won't have to worry about loosing a whole bed of them.

 

Thanks for the info, Sjoerd. I know I probably ought to do that to a few of my plants, but I'm not sure if I can manage to do it. I know, hopelessly soft.

 

Hi Toni and Droopy--yes, it is very nerve-wraking to do it. I don't think that anyone would blame you if you didn't do it because I do not know of even one person that doesn't feel nervous about doing this procedure.. hahaha
It's natural for a gardner not to "mangle" the things they love, isn't it?

Toni- I do not remember which Sedum it is. I got it perhaps ten years ago and that lable is long gone. The blooms are pinky-red. 'Sedum Herbstfreude' I think it was, but I am no longer sure. It could be 'Autumn Joy' as easily. I had a look at yours and mine looks like that one too.

 

Hi Toni--I looked back through all the lables and recordings in the black book to see if I could discover the name of my particular Sedum, but to no avail. Sorry.