August Cut Back

"If it Looks Bad, Cut it Back" for a fresher garden this autumn

The Long Border, our damp prairie garden, with Echinacea still going strong

The Long Border, which is our damp prairie garden, is still sending something new in to flower each week. But with over a hundred feet in length, it has also seen quite a perennials come and go earlier in the spring & summer. For the past-their-prime perennial plants, it is time for some harsh treatment so that they will keep looking good in the next three months of the gardening year. Let’s talk about what that means practically: Which tools do you use? How far do you cut? Which plants respond well?

Summer Cut Back

Tracy DiSabato-Aust calls this “dead leafing” in her book, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden.* This is a favorite gardening book of mine for its simple, no nonsense instructions on how to help perennial gardens look their best.

Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter calls pruning of this sort it de-browning, as it covers the removal of all the unsightly material that has finished, including some seed heads that will overwhelm the garden with self-sowers later on.

I tell my clients a simplified version to cover all the tatty parts of all the plants: “If it looks bad, cut it back…”