Hi Gang,
I’ve been chipping away at my wildlife gardens since sometime in March. I am quite sure that as recently as two weeks ago I could still easily spot all the baby Black Walnut trees coming up in my perennial gardens that squirrels had planted for me. I kept trying to bring that task up to the top of the list. Too, just two weeks ago there were many bare areas in the perennial garden. In just two weeks perennials have exploded, there are hardly any bare areas, and those Black Walnuts, well, good luck finding them now.
The lushness and fullness of a perennial garden in late May is joyful to behold. All of sudden my asters were three to four feet tall. So I got my clippers out and gave them and a few other fall-blooming perennials a HAIR CUT . I cut back New England Aster, Common Blue Wood Aster, Smooth Blue Aster, and Tall Sunflower (my stands of White Wood Aster did not yet need a haircut). Why haircuts, you might ask. It is quite simple. If you want these fall-blooming perennials bushy and full of flowers when they bloom, they need haircuts now, otherwise by fall they will be so top heavy that they are likely to flop over from the weight of flowers on long, unbranched stalks.
Years ago Flora for Fauna (native plant nursery) owner Karen Williams shared this sage advice about maintaining one of my favorite native perennials, New England Aster, and I’m about to share it with you. Though this post is for folks with plants that are several years old and flourishing, not for brand, spanking new plants that have just been put into the ground this year.
NEW ENGLAND ASTER
2 HAIR CUTS: Memorial Day & 4th of July
New England Aster can get very tall and top heavy by the time it blooms in the fall. And the last thing any of us want is for its lovely spread of glowing purple flowers, nectar, and joy to be laying on the ground come fall.
To help it grow into a many-branched, bushy plant instead of a tall, gangly, top-heavy plant, all you need to do is to give it 2 hair cuts on or around the 1st two holidays of the growing season: Memorial Day and 4th of July. Of course these dates are not single-day events, but roughly when you want to give New England Aster its hair cuts. Too, you can be the judge if you need to do your hair cuts earlier, or even if the 2nd haircut is needed. With the cool and relatively wet (and very pleasant) spring we had in southern NJ in 2024, I noticed that my plants needed hair cuts quite a while ago. Know that you can jump start the process by several weeks to a month some years!
As a wildlife gardener I don’t clean up and toss the cuttings, but instead leave them on the ground at the base of the plant. That way any caterpillars that went for a tumble with the cuttings can climb back onto the plant and continue to munch. Doug Tallamy (author of Bringing Nature Home, Nature’s Best Hope, and The Nature of Oaks) shares that 112 species of butterflies and moths lay their eggs on our native asters, making asters one of the TOP 20 perennials used by butterflies and moths for egg laying. Don’t be surprised if some of your cuttings take root and become additional asters!
Around Memorial Day, I cut each stem 1/2 (or 2/3) off (or about a foot or two off the top, depending on how tall it is, if that is easier for you to remember). I use big shears and just chop away. What happens next is that each cut plant stem sends out 2 or more new shoots where it has been cut, in other words it branches and becomes more bushy!
Some of my asters get regular haircuts from plentiful E. Cottontails (they must think our yard is one large salad bowl crafted just for them). I’ve planted the lovely fall-blooming, shade loving Common Blue Wood Aster, Symphyotrichum cordifolium, under our Tulip Tree and in our woods. Despite hungry rabbits it has flourished and spread into other beds, our meadow, the perennial garden, and elsewhere and that pleases me. It is so plentiful that it keeps the rabbits busy and away from most other asters. We’ve fenced our yard, so deer are not an issue for us. But other gardeners share that deer routinely give their asters hair cuts.
If needed, around 4th of July, I give my plants their 2nd hair cut (not back to the 1st cut, but cutting back some of the new growth since Memorial Day). You may want to be more creative for this hair cut and cut the many stems in your plant different lengths. For instance, give the stems in the foreground more of a hair cut, the stems in the middle less of a hair cut, and the stems in the back just a little hair cut. This way your plant stems will bloom at different heights.
Summer 2024 Update: 2024 was a very odd (hopefully not the “new normal”) summer. Late May through all of June 2024 we experienced a severe drought in Goshen (Cape May County), NJ. We had no measurable rain for 6 weeks, coupled with a heat dome that hovered over us during the longest days of the year. It was brutal. Many native perennials suffered and barely grew. By July 4th, when I normally give some of my fall-blooming plants their 2nd haircut, it was totally unnecessary. Thankfully, we had some crazy-heavy rains that helped rejuvenate wildlife gardens (June 30 -July 1 we had 4.4″ and July 12-14 we had 5.85″ of rain — I submit daily rainfall to CoCoRaHS). One plant I did give a 2nd haircut to was my Tall (or Giant) Sunflower. And I did not do that until July 9, 2024. In my garden this summer nothing else has needed the 2nd haircut.
You may find that some plants haven’t grown as tall as others, so you may choose to pass on the 2nd hair cut for some plants. If so, you’ll find that these plants will bloom earlier. This staggers the blooming period so that you have New England Aster nectar, color, and joy far longer in your wildlife garden.
A bit more advice: once given hair cuts, New England Aster has “ugly legs.” The stems below the 1st haircut look “not so nice” . . . the leaves darken and fall off and the stems are quite bare. So you’ll want to have other perennials in the foreground blocking that view, so you’re not looking at ugly bare legs.
You can give 1-2 haircuts to some other fall-blooming perennials that grow tall and flop, so they’ll instead branch and become more bushy:
Goldenrod
Sedum
Sunflower
For some summer-blooming plants that grow too tall for your garden, you can give them one haircut around Memorial Day, forcing them to branch, become bushier, and bloom lower. I sometimes do this with some of my favorite summer nectar plants so that I have an easier time seeing and photographing pollinators on them:
Culver’s Root
Garden Phlox (I tried this for the 1st time in 2023)
Ironweed
Joe-pye-weed
Sneezeweed
Blue Vervain
various Bonesets
You can always experiment on other fall-blooming perennials that have flopped in your garden. If you’re not sure how hair cuts will turn out on plants other than those I’ve mentioned, try giving a hair cut to one stem ONLY (or if you have several plants of Cut-leafed Coneflower, for example, in your garden, give one of them hair cuts so you can compare results with your uncut plants). Then see how your plant reacts and whether you like the results.
Don’t hesitate to ask a question, but please use the Comment Box at the end of this post, so others can benefit from your question and my answer. Maybe scroll down through previous questions; you may find that your question is already answered.
Happy Wildlife Gardening,
Pat