Tips for Summer

You can give you garden a facelift now by shearing off all the growth of the following perennials:

•  Alchemilla mollis (lady’s mantle)

• hardy geraniums

• fennel

• any aquilegia that hid from your secateurs after spring flowering

New leaves will form, creating neat mounds of foliage and lasting well into autumn.

• Nepeta (cat mint) will also sigh with relief if you cut off all the old flowering stems at the base

• Oriental poppies should have been razed to the ground after flowering and they too will present you with a neat crown of leaves which will last through the winter

• If you cut delphiniums down to four inches after flowering they should flower again in August

It is not too late to prune the flowered wood off:

• Philadelphus (mock orange)

• Deutzia

• Exochorda

• the spring flowering Spiraea

• rambling roses that flower on old wood can also be pruned.   Cut to the ground the oldest stems where there are young, replacement shoots, e.g. ‘American Pillar’, ‘Dorothy Perkins’, etc.

All plants should be well watered and mulched with well rotted organic matter after pruning.   The mulch should not touch the plant stems.

Happy Gardening!