Spring Gardening: Cut Back These Perennials

Everyone likes to look at a beautiful garden, and gardeners love seeing their perennials start to come out after long months of cold, gray weather. The trick to ensuring that your perennials come back beautiful and vibrant every year is to prune them at the right time. For some perennial plants, pruning them in the fall is the best way to keep them at their best. For others, however, you don’t want to leave it too late and should prune them in the spring. As your local Ace Hardware in NH, our team at Aubin Hardware has everything you need to ensure your garden is beautiful year-round, including pruning tips!

 

Here are four perennials you should cut back in the spring. And swing by your NH Ace Hardware for gardening tools, fertilizer, and more!

 

Black-Eyed Susans

Black-eyed Susan heads aren’t very attractive in the winter, but they drop seeds that feed the birds. The seeds that the birds don’t eat will germinate into more flowers, so cutting them back in the spring gives new flowers room to grow. The strong ones will flower again, and those that don’t make it will all new plants to spring up.

 

Foxglove

There are multiple species of foxglove. Some are reliable perennials, while others are only biennials. For the perennial varieties, you want to prune them after they flower and then again in spring to make room for new growth.

 

ace hardware nh

Fringed Bleeding Heart

This cousin of the Asian bleeding heart is a wildflower native to North America. The flowers grow high enough to be protected from damp soil, and the foliage nearly disappears by spring. If you have fringed bleeding heart plants on your property, cutting back the remaining foliage in the spring allows the flowers to bloom.

 

Cardinal Flower

The cardinal flower does like moist soil, but it doesn’t like sitting in cold, wet soil for the entire winter. Leaving the cardinal flowers’ stems intact will protect them from more severe winter weather. Holding off on cleaning up these plants until spring ensures that they stay protected until you cut them back in the springtime.

 

Garden Like a Pro at Your NH Ace Hardware

These are just a few of the perennial plants we often find in this area. Our friends at The Spruce have a much longer list.

 

Find all your gardening needs at Aubin Ace Hardware NH! Visit us at 762 Mast Road in Manchester.