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Shall I hack my Verbena bonariensis?
Hi all, I'm just doing a pre winter tidy and wondered if you can give me some advice on pruning down my Verbena bonariensis. They've been in the ground since mid summer and have done well, and I want them to continue to do well next year. The flowers have died down and they're looking a bit sad. If I should cut them down, how low should I go? thanks guys!
Dave
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Will be interested in your answers, i was wondering that as well
the tops will die off so you might as well. They're not plants to stand tall though the winter and look good in the frost, or great suppliers of winter bird food
I haven't done mine yet but I haven't done much else either.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I usually leave mine purely because the tops then take any frost and protect the crowns a bit. Having said that, in the last 5 winters every one of them has succumbed to severe frosts but leaving the stalks and flower heads means they self seed so I get free new plants in spring.
Mine also never survive the Winter obelixx so I do the same as you and get the same result. It means the new ones are quite late to flower but I don't mind that.
Yes, and you have to be careful not to weed the babies in spring. Mine still have some flowers now and I love the airy transparency of the plant's structure.
So the general consensus so far is to leave them be? I wand kind of thinking that anyway. I'll leave them and see how they get on and see if I get any freebies in spring!
thanks guys
Mine all went near horizontal in the last gale. Some will have seeded though and some might come through. I never end up without any. There'll always be some in the gravel on the drive
In the sticks near Peterborough
Half my garden is on the lean after those gales and the big storm in summer Nut but the verbenas seem to have coped. Funny how things differ from one garden to another.
I have some soil that's very lacking in substance Obelixx, dry, but not sandy, like dust. Some plants go well there so I haven't tried to improve it. In one gale a few years ago I thought a Bupleurum fruticosum had been broken off but it had been blown out of the ground after at least 5 years growing there.
The verbena haven't broken, they're half out of the gound, as was a 4 year old buddleia. I've cut that back a lot and pushed the rest back upright. All will be well.
In the sticks near Peterborough