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CHELSEA CHOP: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

Joe Pye Weed…before the chop.

Joe Pye Weed…after the chop.

By LADYBUG

Some plants just love where they are. They will settle in happily, and take off. Sometimes reaching heights you never anticipated.

Asters, obedient plants and Joe Pye Weed, that I moved from my old garden to the new one behaved nothing like they had in their old spots.

I planned the beds with their old heights in mind, but the plan went haywire with what should have middle-of-the-bed plants towering over the ones behind them.

More digging and replanting later, I grumbled to my gardening pal Linda. “They get more sun here,” I said. “Or the soil is richer, though I used to keep them on a steady diet of compost in the old garden, too.”

She asked me if I had tried cutting them down. By a third or even half.

How would they respond to such harsh treatment?

Would they still flower, I wondered.

Linda assured me they would. She reminded me of the fact that her garden looks neater with everything in its place while mine  is more, well, free range!

“I’ve been doing this with phlox and golden glow for years,” she said. “Just cut them down in early spring. The plants are bushier and bloom on shorter stems.”

In one of those coincidences that never fail to surprise, soon after this, I came across an article advocating the same thing. And learnt the official name of what went by “Linda’s Chop” in my garden journal: Chelsea Chop. So called because it is usually carried out at the end of May, coinciding with the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show.

I looked it up for more info and learnt pruning (which sounds way nicer than chopping) limits the size, controls the flowering season, and reduces the need for staking to prevent tall plants from flopping  over.

All of this was tempting, but still, I hesitated. Now that I had replanted everything at the back of the border, I didn’t really see the need to do so.

Until the Joe Pye Weed grew. And grew some more. Eliciting oohs and aahs from passing neighbours who admired the mop heads dancing in the breeze above the fence. Some asked for seedlings and I was happy to oblige as this is a generous self-seeder and plants pop up all over the place.

But below the flower heads was a wall of tall stems with plants in front of them blooming at a much a lower height.

Thus, last May, I decided that it was finally time to try the Chelsea Chop.

With great trepidation, I cut a few stems of the Joe Pye Weed. Then, emboldened, and adopting a nothing-ventured-nothing-gained bravado, went on a chopping spree with the shears.

Followed by remorse. And a lot of hovering around the plants. Would they survive? Would they go into a sulk, or would they bloom for me again?

Well, Linda (and the good folks at the world-famous flower show) know of what they speak. The plants not only flowered, they were filled with big bunches of exuberant blooms. And at a lower height, they provided a perfect backdrop for what I had planted in front.

So this year, I am going to give my phlox and not-so-obedient obedient plants the same treatment.

Other candidates, according to Danielle Sherry in an article in Fine Gardening, include yarrow, bellflower, aster, coneflower, black-eyed Susan, penstemon and even shasta daisy.

Sometimes, cutting things down to size does work wonders.