Garden Tip 95:

We have a term at our house that we use to describe an important garden activity that we do during this time of year– garden editing. Starting in March we do all that we can to promote and encourage vigorous growth in the garden and landscape.

Come July and August, that effort is reversed and our work is focused on controlling, containing or removing what we have grown. Garden editing is just that– changing or removing that which does not add to the picture. An important bit of garden editing involves daylilies. We spoke of this last season, but it is time sensitive, so it is good to mention it again now.

For rebloomers like Happy Returns and Stella D’Oro, it is important to remove old flower stalks (scapes) and give them a weekly liquid feeding to encourage the production of new buds and flowers. For other varieties, it is a good time to cut all of the old foliage to about one inch above the ground. The plants will respond by sending out lush new growth and the green mounds of foliage will look great in the garden and feed the roots until frost.