Taming the Wild

Taming the Wild

Gardening Techniques to Get the Most out of Your Native Perennials

If you’re reading this, we bet you love native plants. But we also bet that there’s a fair number of our readers who harbor a smidgeon of reluctance about native plants. Maybe you’ve seen them in someone’s garden and thought, “Oh, that’s a bit wild for me - a tad messy and overgrown looking.”

I hear you. I want to meet you wherever you are in the native plant lover continuum. After working in private and public gardens for years, allow me to share with you the things I’ve learned about managing and maintaining native plants to meet the expectations of the most exacting standards so that your native plant garden can shine its best too.

For some native plant enthusiasts, there will be no need for these tricks of the trade. However, this post is for those gardeners who are on the fence about using native plants, worried that they make their gardens look out of control. While many people love native plants in their natural state (I do too!), I understand that in some contexts, more management may be necessary. People live in all sorts of situations, each with their own challenges; from strict HOA communities, to tiny garden plots, to trying to contend with family members that aren’t interested in having a meadow in the front yard. Finding balance is key. Native plants are like any other plant when we use the maxim “right plant, right place.” With the right selection and the proper care, your native pollinator garden will not only be a place of joy for you and the wildlife, but for all the humans in your life too. If that sounds like something you are looking for in your garden, then continue reading.

RIGHT PLANT, RIGHT PLACE

(an oldie but goodie)

One of the surest ways to have plants perform their best is to follow the adage of “right plant, right place”. It’s an oft-repeated sentiment because it’s true. When a plant is planted in its preferred site, we can move on to more advanced horticultural techniques. However, if a plant is stressed from being planted in a challenging site, that may be the reason it’s looking wild or unwell, and not because the plant needs fancy horticultural smoke and mirrors. Stressed plants can flop, stretch, show stunted growth or yellowing leaves, have too few flowers, attract pests and disease, rot, and play host to a myriad of other problems.

Giving the right plant its right place means…

• Appropriate soil - plant the plant in similar conditions that it's found in in the wild. Figuring out your soil type, texture, fertility, pH, and matching plants that like those conditions will take you a long way toward success. Check out the notes in our plant descriptions; they strive to give you insight into a plant’s natural environment. Then you can pick from the plant list what matches your conditions.
• Appropriate sunlight - follow the sunlight preferences description for the best- case scenario. Pushing a plant to its light limits with either too much or too little sun can result in stunted or stretched plants that flop or don’t flower well.
• Appropriate moisture levels - Plants that are water-stressed, because of too much or too little moisture, can stretch, shrivel, lose lower leaves or sprawl. A good way to ensure a healthy plant is by providing consistent moisture, not too much or too little for its specific needs.
• Appropriate zone - no zone pushers here. A “zone pusher” is what we call the daredevil gardener who likes to try their hand at planting a plant at the furthermost edges of a plant’s growing range. Pushing a plant to its climate extremes can result in a stressed plant that is weak and unreliable.

Additionally, gardeners in different climates will face different challenges with plants in their location. The shorter growing season, softer light, more regular rainfall, and milder summers in the northern limits of a plant’s range will produce different growth habits than the same plant in the harsh light and high summer temperatures with high humidity of the South. Part of growing a plant is learning how they grow in your area. To that end, take all garden advice with a grain of salt and experiment with what works for you in your garden.

THE FOUR CUTS

In professional horticulture, we have four basic pruning techniques we perform within different time windows to achieve an attractively managed garden. Why do we prune? We prune to extend bloom times or repeat blooms on plants, encourage lush new growth, regenerate plants, stagger bloom times, reduce plant heights, keep plants controlled in their garden space, increase the number of flowers, reduce the incidence of pest or disease, and to enhance the overall beauty of the plants. These techniques are not difficult but the trick, as with any skill, is timing and consistency. To perform these management techniques, all you will need is a good pair of pruners.

THE CHELSEA CHOP

Named for the pruning time of year coinciding with London’s Chelsea Flower Show on the 3rd week of May, this gardening technique is the act of hacking back one-third to one-half of a perennial in late spring. While it may seem brutal, imagine a deer mowing down half a plant in your spring garden; this is the human version.

The Chelsea chop retards plant growth. Gardeners use this technique to prevent a plant from being too tall for a space, to increase branching for flowering, or prevent late- season sprawl. I recommend you only use this on herbaceous perennials that have a mounding habit (i.e asters, but not coneflowers).

Where you live can change when you perform this task. In warmer areas, you may perform this cutback a couple of weeks earlier in the year, and in colder areas, you do this a couple of weeks later. Mid-spring to early summer is when you should perform the Chelsea chop, adjusting the timeframe to meet your climatic conditions.

Plants that perform well with a Chelsea chop:

• Agastache spp. - hyssop
• Boltonia asteroides - white doll’s daisy
• Coreopsis spp. - tickseed
• Eupatorium spp. - thoroughwort
• Eutrochium spp. - Joe-Pye weed
• Euthamia, Oligoneuron, Solidago spp. - goldenrod
• Helenium spp. - sneezeweed
• Helianthus spp. - sunflower
• Monarda spp. - beebalm
• Phlox paniculata - garden phlox
• Physostegia virginiana - obedient plant
• Pycnanthemum spp. - mountainmint
• Scutellaria spp. - skullcap
• Symphyotrichum, Boltonia, Eurybia spp. - aster
• Verbena spp. - vervain
• Vernonia spp. - ironweed

STAGGERING BLOOM TIMES

This is the step-up in complication to the Chelsea chop. Essentially, you are chopping back one-third to one-half of a plant in sections, performing each section’s cut back over two-week intervals. Imagine you have a large stand of beebalm. Instead of cutting it all back at the same time, you cut back one section in spring and then wait two weeks and cut back another section. If you’re feeling really spicy and have a long growing season, you could possibly try to wait another two weeks for a third section but you might be pushing things back too late. Staggering the weeks you chop back different sections of a plant variety will stagger its flowering time and give you a longer bloomtime experience. Experiment with what works for you.

Plants that perform well with staggering cuts to prolong bloom:

• Agastache spp. - hyssop
• Coreopsis spp. - tickseed
• Euthamia, Oligoneuron, Solidago spp. - goldenrod
• Helenium spp. - sneezeweed
• Monarda spp. - beebalm
• Phlox paniculata - garden phlox
• Symphyotrichum, Boltonia, Eurybia spp. - aster

SHEARING OR CUTTING BACK AFTER FLOWERING

Shearing is a technique to refresh perennials after they bloom. Usually, these plants bloom late in spring or early in summer. The technique is exactly as it sounds: you grab a fistful of the plant and shear it in half, usually in midsummer. This cuts off the spent flowers and prevents the plant from spending its energy on seed production instead of healthy foliage growth for the rest of the summer. Grabbing a fistful of plants and cutting back works well for a number of sedges and low clumping or low spreading perennials.

For beardtongue, yarrow, and spiderwort, I perform a hard cutback after flowering, taking the spent flower stems all the way back to the ground. It will look bare for the first couple of weeks before the plant pushes new growth from the center. It’s harsh, but I love using this technique where I live. A few of these plants are semi-evergreen in zone 7 and the lush foliage provides winter groundcover when everything else has faded away. If you don’t cut perennials back hard in midsummer, you won’t have the refresh of summer foliage that takes you through the winter. Planning for that winter groundcover makes it well worth the effort during the heat and humidity of late June or July. For those living in colder zones, a hard cutback will still give you refreshed foliage through fall.

There is a cost/benefit analysis for the cutting back technique. Native plants provide food for wildlife as their seeds ripen. The way I assuage my guilt is by leaving the cut seedheads to dry and set their seed in a place where the birds can get them: off to the side of a compost pile.

Plants that bounce back after a cutback:

• Achillea millefolium - yarrow
• Amsonia spp. - bluestar
• Aquilegia spp. - columbine
• Callirhoe spp. - winecups
• Carex spp. - sedge
• Coreopsis verticillata - whorled tickseed
• Glandularia canadensis - rose mock verbena
• Heliopsis helianthoides - smooth oxeye
• Oenothera fruticosa - narrowleaf evening primrose
• Oenothera lindheimeri - beeblossom
• Penstemon spp. - beardtongue
• Phlox stolonifera - creeping phlox
• Polemonium reptans - Jacob’s ladder
• Rudbeckia fulgida - orange coneflower
• Sisyrinchium spp. - blue-eyed grass
• Thalictrum spp. - meadowrue
• Tradescantia spp. - spiderwort

DEADHEADING

This may, or may not, be the most dreaded task in gardening to some, right after weeding. In my mind, if you’ve planted your native pollinator garden correctly, with good groundcover plants acting as green mulch and spacing the plants close, your plants will be living in a tight community and you won’t have many weeds. With less weeding to do, look at all that time you have for deadheading! (I can hear you groaning at me.)

Deadheading is the act of cutting off spent flower heads after they have faded, to prevent the plant from putting all of its energy into seed production. When you cut off spent flowers, the plant will continue to push more and more flowers as the season goes on, prolonging the bloom window. Some plants may not produce more flowers but you can deadhead them to prevent unwanted reseeding or to maintain their foliage looking fresh for the rest of the season. Deadheading is performed throughout the entire growing season.

When deadheading, follow the stem to the first leaf or node and cut above it. For plants that have long stems that emerge from basal foliage, you can follow the stem all the way back to the base and cut there. I confess, some groundcover plants on the list, like coral bells, ragwort, Robin’s plantain, and foamflower won’t rebloom. It is just my personal preference to deadhead their stalks. These plants have seedheads that don’t hold well as winter interest and make the plant look unkempt after they bloom.

Once again, the gardener must weigh their pros and cons. The act of deadheading does remove spent flowers that will turn into seeds that can be eaten by wildlife. One could choose to only deadhead plants that are immediately near the house or can be seen from the window and leave the rest of the plants alone. Or one could leave the spent flowerheads to dry off to the side where the wildlife can access them. Do what is best under your circumstances.

Plants with prolonged bloomtimes, or improved appearance, with deadheading:

• Agastache spp. - hyssop
• Blephilia spp. - pagoda plant
• Chrysopsis mariana - Maryland goldenaster
• Coreopsis spp. - tickseed
• Delphinium spp. - larkspur
• Echinacea spp. - purple coneflower
• Erigeron pulchellus - Robin’s plantain
• Helianthus spp. - sunflower
• Heuchera spp. - coral bells
• Packera spp. - ragwort
• Phlox spp. - phlox
• Rudbeckia spp. - coneflower
• Ruellia humilis - wild petunia
• Tiarella cordifolia - foamflower
• Salvia lyrata - lyreleaf sage
• Silphium terebinthinaceum - prairie rosinweed

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

Timing is of the essence with these four cut techniques. There’s a window for the Chelsea chop and staggering bloom times that if missed, will be too late in the season to perform. If that’s the case, it’s best to hold off and try again next year. This goes for shearing as well; you want to make sure the plant has enough time to fully recover before being exposed to stressful conditions such as heat and drought, or the return of the cold season. Removing foliage from a plant takes away its potential energy production. After a cutback, it is always nice to give the plants what they need, pampering them with water and a touch of compost. They’ll bounce back, right as rain, with a little TLC.

Over the years, I’ve experimented with different pruning techniques adjusting the timing and noting which plants respond well and which plants don’t like the attention. It’s been a steep learning curve as I’ve adapted to the particular growing conditions of the places I’ve worked around the country. As always, gardening is a lot of trial and error and observing your plants. I encourage you to experiment and see what works well for your native perennials and garden conditions.

To some, this may be more fuss than they would want to do. That’s fine, one-hundred percent. Could you avoid all the finessing and still have a beautiful garden? Yes, with proper planning and plant selection. But if you wish to have a straight species native plant garden without cultivars bred for habit and flower production, pruning techniques manage a plant’s characteristics so that you can have the best of both worlds: genetic diversity and enhanced garden performance. With sound garden practices and care, a native plant garden can support the local ecosystem while being pretty and not upsetting the neighbors. And that is something that is worth the effort.

All photos © Chelsea Ruiz

Chelsea Ruiz is a horticulturalist and garden writer based out of Virginia. She received her bachelors from University of Wisconsin Madison and cut her teeth at Chicago Botanic Garden and Longwood Gardens in research and plant trials. She trialed native plants for a wholesale native plant nursery using her research background to communicate truth over tropes to customers on how their plants grow in a wide variety of challenging settings. The goal of her garden writing is to provide the facts and hard-won experience to empower gardeners to make informed decisions in their landscapes.