Cranesbill

[Tia4]

Hello everyone! Now that my purple Cranesbill are finishing, what do I do with them? They are inherited (as is the whole garden and this is our first summer in this one) and the clumps are quite big so are looking rather messy and floppy. Do I chop them down to a couple of inches? I'm thinking that the bare clumps are going to look awful throughout the rest of the summer and I'll have try and disguise them with expensive bedding plants!

Hoping for some wise words of wisdom! Tia.

They're lovely, aren't they? Yes, just chop off any straggly dead parts or untidy bits until they're back down to neat clumps of leaves. If you want, at this stage, you can lift and divide. They disappear completely in the winter and pop back up again for next year.

some of them will re-flower again this year if you cut it back. Apparently it's called a "Chelsea Crop" ideally done just as Chelsea Flower Show finishes.

I've cut some of mine back and it looks fine.

Thank you both! I have chopped a couple of clumps back tonight and the resulting leaf and stem mounds look a bit unsightly but I am taking your advice ... it will be an experiment ha ha! One clump I will lift and divide and the other will be left and watched carefully to see if they flower again! I am quite looking forward to see what happens ... now see what you've started?
Thanks :)

It's pretty un-killable stuff. :)

It regrows really quickly - you usually find when you chop it there's a bit of fresh new growth just waiting to come up.

I've just looked out at the patch I cut back last week and already there's a good covering of fresh green leaves.

Thank you both for the last two posts - sounds like I won't have a stubbly unsightly clump left behind after all! Tia.