The idea is that cutting back some of the flowering stems in late May delays flowering and extends the flowering season and also makes the plants produce shorter, sturdier stems. Plants like sedum spectabile are notorious for going floppy and sprawling if left unchopped.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I think it's important for woody salvias, else they just get too leggy over the years. The plants in the vid look much more dense than mine. I was going for an actual Bumble hedge, but think I would rather go for about three ft of dense growth.
I don't get why I should do something designed to delay flowering. I can understand other reasons but I am not willing to pay for them with the delay in flowers. Maybe I could try the half-chop with my phlox - chopping only half of the stems, chosen randomly - to prolong flowering without delaying it. Anyone successful with that?
The idea,I think is to get a more compact plant that isn't flopping all over the place. The trade off is that your flowers are a bit later. With the large sedum plants,I leave a few stems in the middle and prune the rest. If I didn't most of the blooms would end up touching the ground in a flat fan shape with nothing much in the middle.
If your garden is full of plants that flower in July and you can extend that display into August, for free, the Chelsea chop lets you do that. You don't ct all the stems or all the plants so they start to flower at the usual time but then flower over a longer period and a more compact, less floppy plant.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I don't Chelsea Chop anything... never have... never going to I'm afraid... and that includes Sedums... the young foliage right now is much too nice to cut back..
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The idea is that cutting back some of the flowering stems in late May delays flowering and extends the flowering season and also makes the plants produce shorter, sturdier stems. Plants like sedum spectabile are notorious for going floppy and sprawling if left unchopped.
With the large sedum plants,I leave a few stems in the middle and prune the rest. If I didn't most of the blooms would end up touching the ground in a flat fan shape with nothing much in the middle.