Perennials need attention now

Pamela Corle-Bennett is the state master gardener volunteer coordinator and horticulture educator for Ohio State University Extension. Contact her by email at bennett.27@osu.edu.

I don’t know why I do it but I am guessing that many of you did the same thing last weekend.

The weather was so incredibly nice and it was great to finally work outside that I worked all day in the yard and then felt it in my muscles Sunday. Sound familiar?

It was really great and for once if feel like I am ahead of the game when it comes to getting my perennial beds ready for spring, with the exception of the winter annual weeds.

It’s time to cut back all of your perennials and roses now. Don’t wait too much longer as new growth is beginning to emerge.

It’s not going to hurt the plant if you don’t do it soon, however, there will be a lot of new growth mixed in with last year’s old growth and this just looks bad.

And the longer you wait, the more of a challenge it is to cut the old growth back when it’s in and among the new growth.

Bottom line is that it’s a lot easier to do it now than to wait until the new growth really takes off.

In terms of roses, take a look at your plants and see how much winter injury there is. If you don’t see new buds forming on the growth, it’s likely that the branch is dead. Remove dead branches.

With roses, the goal is to open up the center of the plant to allow for good air circulation and sunlight penetration.

The shrub-type roses benefit from thinning out older branches, allowing the newer branches to take off.

There are some perennials that tend to be more on the woody side. This means that they have woody stems and branches as opposed to soft herbaceous tissue you find on most perennials.

On these plants, I have a tendency to really cut them back. I remove the woody stems all the way back to the crown or main growth point of the plant.

This encourages new, more compact and bushy growth as opposed to long straggly branches.

I do this on lavender, Russian sage, Caryopteris, and butterfly bush. I just like the way they look after a good rejuvenation pruning.

If you aren’t going to remove all of the woody stems, you might want to wait a little longer to see which branches survived the winter and which didn’t. Then prune according to the desired shape of the plant for this season.

In addition, I treat most of my summer blooming hydrangeas as perennials. I cut them all back to around four to six inches from the crown.

This should only be done on hydrangeas that bloom on new wood that grows this season. If they bloom on old wood or branches that were formed last year, you will be cutting off the flowers for this year.

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