Cutting back perennials

This year has been the first we've actually been able to plant anything permanent in the garden we've cleaved from our inherited wilderness. Our planting consists mainly of perennials, (salvia, lobelia, gaura, nemesia, hemerocallis, verbena, gaillardia, coreopsis, osteospermum, cerinthe, lychnis, penstemon and the like) now we'd welcome a bit of advice re: cutting back.

Apart from things such as penstemons which I know shouldn't be cut back, would you advise cutting the rest down or - as they're all new plants, would it be best to leave them alone this autumn? And, in the future when they're all much bigger, would it be a complete disaster if we didn't cut them back?

 

It won't be a complete disaster if you don't do them in autumn, but you'll need to do them all in Spring as new growth will start appearing and the old, dead growth may get in the way.

Some perennials can look good in winter, even when they're dead and woody. I usually leave Sedum, Astilbe, Rudbeckia - anything with a nice seed head or interesting dried out flowers! Others will just look tatty and brown and are best cut back.

As you say, leave Penstemon until Spring.

EDIT TO ADD - another good reason for not cutting back now is that in Spring it gives you an idea where you've planted things! Some perennials, like Phlox, Crocosmia and Eupatorium don't make an appearance that early and die away completely over winter.

 

The shaggy, untidy, stuff I cut half-back in the Autumn. Stops it flopping over and making a complete mess, or blowing over in the wind. "Half back" is down to probably about a foot, or maybe a bit more for strong sturdy stuff.

 

Some people just can't bear the scruffy look of them if they aren't cut back. I always try to leave them, but invariably-and usually sometime end of November I can't stop myself and cut it all back.


I seem to remember reading somewhere that it's best to leave them anyway until spring.

 

"I seem to remember reading somewhere that it's best to leave them anyway until spring."

Some "top" provides some protection perhaps?

 

I'm like that. It also gives me something to do when there's no much else to do in the garden!

 

I agree with the general opinion , i just cut back any tall plants and just generally tidy the borders ,so you know where to look next spring and it does give protection to the roots,

 

My thanks everyone for your advice. I have (at the moment at least) got nice, neat labels on everything, but I'm guessing that'll all change! Having considered all that's been advised, and the fact that most of the plants are still fairly small, I think I'll probably leave the bulk of the cutting down until I see new growth.

 

I find the birds are little ****** for pulling out labels

 

Or the labels fade, or get moved, or just seem to disappear. No idea why but they do

 

Guess I am pretty 'odd' when it comes to figuring out where stuff is ... i have them all drawn out on paper, like a plan of the garden and listed what is where .... or else i would forget what I have!!

I then tend to put markers in the ground when they start dying back, purely to mark that there is something there, rather than what it is (i refer back to the bits of paper for that).

I too tend to leave them to die back of their own and just pick up the dead bits that fall off. I dont mind the messy look come winter

 

I leave most of mine uncut over the winter, except those that look very messy, much better for wildlife. The birds will feed on the seedheads and bugs and spiders will hide.

 

I did that one year. Then forgot to update it:o

 

We too drew up a 'plan'. Mr. F'smum, being an architect, measured, re-measured, measured again, transferred everything onto graph paper and produced a wonderfully accurate scale blueprint of the whole thing, even going so far as to include a 'prediction' which took into account the plant's ultimate spread - yes, bless him - he needs to get out more!

Fortunately, he's a better architect than he is gardener. Having failed to appreciate that plants die, don't necessarily grow outwards neatly from their starting point and that summer bedding needs to be replaced, he quickly realised that amending this work of art was becoming a full-time occupation, moaned and eventually gave up. I, on the other hand, just went round with the camera and deleted those pictures in which things had been replaced - to quote Aleksandr .... 'simples'!