Dead-heading and what to leave

By the beginning of August my borders in the back garden are past their prime and need dead-heading and generally tidying up.  Rather than the one day given over to this I've had to do it in fits and starts this year thanks to the miserable August weather so far.


All the fences have climbing roses against them which need clipping back (removing the spent blooms) and tying in.  If I do it early enough and boost them with a feed ( an ounce of Toprose each) - weather permitting - I usually get a second flush of blooms. I can already see signs of fresh new growth, so fingers crossed.


Generally I cut back any perennials which have finished flowering and are looking scruffy to the point where they look 'tidier'.  This means cutting the flowering stem almost down to the base and taking out any dead/dying leaves and sometimes a bit of a haircut to let the fresh new growth through.   With some plants like geraniums and delphiniums this encourages a second flush of smaller flowers. The borders get a slight sprinkling of bonemeal after this clean up. 


Always the hardest decision is what I want to leave to run to seed.  The obvious answer is to leave anything I want to scatter its seed randomly around such as aquilegia, astrantia, foxgloves and some of my small ground cover geraniums.  That said, this year, I decided only to leave a few of these as I have enough of them already.  A few extras won't go amiss if we have a hard winter and I lose some of the parents. They can always be weeded out, moved to a gap or potted on for anyone who wants them come the spring.  


I don't think it is possible to make a definitive list of what to deadhead and what to leave.  Removing the seed heads should strengthen the parent plant as it will put its energy into making a better root system instead of trying to reproduce.  Some easy (almost wild) perennials like poppies and granny bonnets and geraniums don't need the same degree of coddling and they can seed hither and yon and still reappear next year.  As I said it seems to be a matter of trial and error and striking the balance of what you want to see in your borders.


An example of 'reading the books' and finding it doesn't work for me was verbena bonariensis.  I bought four superb plants last year and they did wonderfully.  Everything I read on them said they 'seed liberally'; indeed some even said cut off the seed heads to prevent this as they were something of a thug.  I happily left on the seed heads as I wanted more plants for my garden.  This spring there was no sign of the parent plants having survived the winter and not a single baby. Perhaps this is another Southern view of a plant which doesn't ring true for  fifty-three degrees North.