By August, does it feel like the best is over in your garden? Spring and summer bloom is usually abundant, but by late summer the garden may look tired. With just a little extra care you can make your display last until early Fall by growing perennials that keep blooming throughout the season, or produce a second flush later in the season.
"Off with their heads" should be your mantra. The act of deadheading stimulates lower buds to develop and produce more flowers. Perennials such as Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue’, purple toadflax (Linaria purpurea) and coreopsis bloom more or less continuously throughout the season. Threadleaf coreopsis (C. verticillata 'Moonbeam' and others) are trickier to deadhead because they have lots of skinny stems that take a little more time to snip. I recommend a lightweight compact scissor from Womanswork, which is small enough to be precise.
- Yarrow (Achillea)
- Coreopsis 'Moonbeam'
To deadhead, cut the stem above a leaf bud further down the stem, where you may see new growth. After a severe cutting, give the plants a deep watering and feeding with liquid seaweed or other fertilizer. Also fluff up the surrounding soil so that late rains penetrate the soil easily.
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