Tips to Extend Your Perennial Garden’s Blooming Season!

Extend the bloom time of summer-blooming perennials by “deadheading”—cutting off spent flowers. With just a little effort, you can enjoy much more colour in your garden. Bonus: This task can be done in the early morning or evening, when the heat isn’t quite so intense.

Plants like lavender, salvia, dianthus, veronica, and coreopsis can all be sheared back once the flowers start to fade. This encourages the plants to send out a new flush of blooms, bringing even more colour to your late summer garden.

Other perennials—such as Shasta daisies, coneflowers, and black-eyed Susans—can be selectively pruned. Simply cut off the spent flowers to encourage new buds further down the stem to develop.
As summer winds down, allow your coneflowers and black-eyed Susans to go to seed—this provides excellent forage for overwintering birds.

Perennials like peonies, hostas, bleeding hearts, and columbines should also be deadheaded to prevent seed production. Some of these can become invasive, while others will benefit from conserving energy for root and leaf development.

Following these simple tips will extend your bloom season, improve plant health, and may even help reduce weeding!