Achillea Safran usually does well here in full sun with plenty of water @Obelixx, just not this year. In addition to drought, I think the hot, drying winds did for them. I have a raspberry-coloured one that is hopeless in sun, though, can’t cope with more than an hour or so of morning shade. Safran is usually a blaze of orange at this time of year, but:
I did exactly the same, @Topbird, right to the ground, this is all new growth. The few modest flower spikes do seem to go over quicker, but better than nothing and at least the new foliage hides the tatty bases of the heleniums:
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
While not quite the same as S. nemorosa, I think S. verticillata 'Purple Rain' is a better garden plant if you need to have something that looks better for longer. The initial flowering period is longer, it regrows and reblooms more reliably when cut back, and they also have beautiful winter seed heads. You can keep it going well into September if you cut it back as the first bloom starts going over.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
@AnniD - personally, I would prefer to see fresh green leaves and have no flowers than look at tatty plants. So I would cut them back now, give them a water and see what happens. You might still get a few flowers in September if the weather plays ball.
@Janie B - I treat astrantias like hardy geraniums and shear the whole lot to the ground as the first flowers start to go over - so usually the beginning of July. I give them a good water and there's usually a nice clump of fresh foliage within a couple weeks. Often a second (much lesser) flush of flowers in late summer.
I have no idea if this is the 'correct' way to treat astrantias but it works for me. My garden is hopelessly over planted and it restores a sense of order and tidiness and allows smaller, smothered plants to breathe if I cut back huge swathes of floppy 'going-over' perennials in July. I refer to it as the 'Hampton Hack' as it usually happens around the time of the Hampton Court flower show.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
For several years I persevered with dead heading individual spikes of caradonna and, although I got a bit of reflowering, I hated the way the fact the leaves always went very brown and tatty and the clumps often splayed after watering or a bit of rain.
For the last couple of years I've cut them right back to the base as soon as the first flush of flowers has faded (usually beginning of July). Within a couple of weeks there's a clump of tidy new growth which grows to about 18" and gives a second flush of flowers at the end of August.
In other words, I treat them (and they respond) in the same way as hardy geraniums and astrantias. I'm just happier with them being neater clumps with fresher leaves.
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I did exactly the same, @Topbird, right to the ground, this is all new growth. The few modest flower spikes do seem to go over quicker, but better than nothing and at least the new foliage hides the tatty bases of the heleniums:
Can I ask about astrantias... do you cut the foliage right back, or just the flower stems? Also beginning July?
@Janie B - I treat astrantias like hardy geraniums and shear the whole lot to the ground as the first flowers start to go over - so usually the beginning of July. I give them a good water and there's usually a nice clump of fresh foliage within a couple weeks. Often a second (much lesser) flush of flowers in late summer.
I have no idea if this is the 'correct' way to treat astrantias but it works for me. My garden is hopelessly over planted and it restores a sense of order and tidiness and allows smaller, smothered plants to breathe if I cut back huge swathes of floppy 'going-over' perennials in July. I refer to it as the 'Hampton Hack' as it usually happens around the time of the Hampton Court flower show.
I shall try this next year.