Follow these four basic care techniques: Shear dead flowers from plants (like dianthus or marguerites) when the bloom season is nearly over. Cut back or remove woody or dying parts of plants (like geraniums or chrysanthemums). Tip cut to produce new sturdy young plants from old plants (like alyssum or sedums). Break up or divide to renew crowded masses of daylilies, coral bells, or Shasta daisies.

The following illustrations and text guide you through these four techniques. Selected plant lists are included with each technique. For a plant not listed, select the grooming technique best suited to the plant.

CUTTING BACK
On some plants the flower stalks can be cut back to a main stem or to ground level right after blooming. The sketch at left below illustrates how you cut plants like aster, chrysanthemum, delphinium, foxglove, gaillardia, gloriosa daisy, hellebore, iberis, penstemon, phlox, Sedum, and yarrow.

For geraniums and pelargoniums, cut woody stalks back to a bud or sideshoot as shown in the center sketch below. Plants that produce new shoots from underground (like asparagus fern, fibrous-rooted begonia, or plumbago) can be cut back to ground level.

For polyantha primroses, cut off the top half of the old leaves after bloom to force a second bloom period.

SHEARING
Use hedge shears or grass clippers to cut off faded blooms and not more than an inch of foliage. Leave as   much leaf surface as possible since the plants may not sprout new growth from bare twigs. Shear such plants as alyssum, chamomile, dianthus, gazania, marguerite, phlox, rosemary, thyme, or any other evergreen with dense bloom.

Click graphic to see
enlarged version.

TIP CUTTING
Many perennials quickly form new roots if you break off healthy shoots and stick the broken end into moist sand   or prepared sand and soil mix. Some perennials that root easily are alyssum, arabis, aubrieta, bergenia, chrysanthemum, delphinium, dianthus, geranium, iberis, pelargonium, and sedum.

Remove healthy shoots from crowded arabis. Have new pot filled with soil mix ready for cutting.

Poke a hole in soil mix large enough for each cutting. Once in place, gently firm soil around each cutting.

Remove plants when they have grown 2 inches. Good root growth looks like this. Replant to large container.

DIVIDING
Some perennials form a dense clump with old growth at the center and young shoots around the edge. You can pry some clumps apart with spading forks (see sketch at left), cut them with a knife or hatchet [see center sketch), or dig them up and break off the young   outside pieces [see sketch at right) for replanting, then discard the old center piece.

Plants that can be pried into sections are acanthus, agapanthus, daylily, and kniphofia [called ‘red hot poker’). Plants with dense roots that need cutting apart are asparagus fern, columbine, iberis, Shasta daisy, and yarrow. Pull off rooted outside pieces of coral bells, chrysanthemum, and primrose for replanting and discard the woody center.

Click graphic to see
enlarged version.

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