clean-up time

Before

After

There are so many plants in my garden that need an annual pruning or cutting back. The lavender needs a trim after flowering, likewise the penstemon, oreganos, salvia, lamb's ears, dianthus...just about everything that blooms. In the late winter to early spring, the grasses need an annual haircut, the agastache gets cut back to the basal growth, the artemesias get cut back nearly to the ground, the ballota needs a trim back to the basal growth; it's a lot to do.

The dilemma I always face is when to do the trimming. It's not that it's so important to the plant - any time after the growth has died back is about fine. But cut back too early, and there is the loss of winter character. I once removed the old grey-brown leaves on the Artemesia versicolor in the middle of winter and was left with a bunch of brown stems with tips of tiny grey leaves. It lasted for months. I also trimmed back the Artemesia 'Powis Castle' in February, leaving what looked like a collection of chopsticks in the garden that lasted for almost 2 months. The agastache are supposed to survive the winter better if the old growth is left in place (I think it collects organic debris which insulates the crown), but I've never noticed a difference.

Trimming too late in the spring after new growth has begun is too late for this work: the soft new growth is easily damaged by the job, and any bulbs emerging under the subshrubs are easily trod upon (and the spring bulbs are exactly what I want to reveal by pruning, just as I want the plants to grow and camoflauge the dying bulb foliage). It seems also that pruning back too late, once the new growth is well underway and the plant has already devoted its resources to the part pruned off, and it recovers more slowly.

So the balance is to cut back at a time that optimizes the winter beauty, yet allows the plants the best growth in the spring. In short, it is the exact moment when the down time in the garden is the shortest. This moment in time is influenced by the vagaries of the weather. The year that I cut back the Powis Castle, there were a couple of late snowfalls which froze back the stubble even more and prolonged the ugly stage. I cut back the grasses late one year, and the grasses had a crewcut look for a couple of weeks. There is also the factor of when I have the time to do the work. I have to go to work, after all.