Can thoroughly recommend the book "The Well Tended Perennial Garden" by Tracy Disabato. She goes into quite a bit of detail about which plants respond well to full and partial 'Chelsea chopping' as well as all the other basics such as dead heading / dead leafing / supporting / planning.
The last past of the book is an alphabetical index of more (fairly) common perennials with information as to whether or not a specific plant will respond to well to the chop & whether or not it is worth dead heading the plant flower by flower (as opposed to just shearing at the end of flowering) - the sort of stuff often not covered in other garden books.
My library stocks it - but I found it sufficiently useful to buy my own copy
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
She does work in the US but also trained in the UK. She mentions climate zones (normal in american gardening literature) but that is really the only difference to a UK book. Helen Yemm has often recommended the book in her gardening column several times which is how I came to know about it.
I used for it good advice on how to best treat plants I already had rather than for plant selection. I liked the fact that she gave specific information as to whether or not a plant would recover well / benefit from a short back and sides in the middle of a growing season and which plants could be chelsea chopped.
I would recommend you have a look at the book in a shop or library first to decide if it's for you. If you've been gardening for years & already know the best way to treat your perennials you might find it has little to teach you. I just liked the fact that it gave a slightly different twist in a very readable format.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
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Can thoroughly recommend the book "The Well Tended Perennial Garden" by Tracy Disabato. She goes into quite a bit of detail about which plants respond well to full and partial 'Chelsea chopping' as well as all the other basics such as dead heading / dead leafing / supporting / planning.
The last past of the book is an alphabetical index of more (fairly) common perennials with information as to whether or not a specific plant will respond to well to the chop & whether or not it is worth dead heading the plant flower by flower (as opposed to just shearing at the end of flowering) - the sort of stuff often not covered in other garden books.
My library stocks it - but I found it sufficiently useful to buy my own copy
Thanks, *Topbird*. I've looked on Amazon and it seems to be USA based. Does that detract at all from its usefulness, do you think?
She does work in the US but also trained in the UK. She mentions climate zones (normal in american gardening literature) but that is really the only difference to a UK book. Helen Yemm has often recommended the book in her gardening column several times which is how I came to know about it.
I used for it good advice on how to best treat plants I already had rather than for plant selection. I liked the fact that she gave specific information as to whether or not a plant would recover well / benefit from a short back and sides in the middle of a growing season and which plants could be chelsea chopped.
I would recommend you have a look at the book in a shop or library first to decide if it's for you. If you've been gardening for years & already know the best way to treat your perennials you might find it has little to teach you. I just liked the fact that it gave a slightly different twist in a very readable format.
Thanks for that! I have been gardening for years but not altogether successfully. I still have much to learn, so I think I will probably treat myself