A few feet away from the ocean, her Sullivan’s Island garden struggled in salty winds that blew towards Charleston. Only sea oats thrived on this sand. But she wanted English perennial lushness surrounding the cottage. A purple clematis sputtered on the lattice. A spindly balloon flower flopped into sand-spurs.
We were quietly dead heading German Iris when she cried out,
“You fools!” “Why do you work when the sun is high in the sky? This is a time for singing and playing!”
It wasn’t like Ruth to cry out. I had no idea what this meant.
She giggled. “It’s Aesop’s fable! It’s what the grasshopper said to the ants as he lounged and they worked to store up food for winter. Remember?”
“I don’t know the story, Ruth.” Though it touched some deep root.
“Asters, phlox, or helianthus this time of year. We want them to grow now but it’s better to delay the flowering and gratification. Then, when they finally flower, it’s more beautiful, more full, and they don’t flop over if you’ve done it. Delayed gratification is what Aesop’s lesson of the hard working ants and the lazy grasshopper was about.”
Now I got it. We’d been pruning perennials on this hot May day.
Ruth taught me the habits of managing perennial borders. I transfered her lessons to my job and duties at the Botanical Garden. I said, “Don’t worry. I’m going to do this perennial spring pruning at work in the Rose Garden. Last year, the asters and chrysanthemum climbed up into the roses and smothered out the lower limbs.” I was kind of talking to myself but she said,
“When we go to California, we’ll go to Huntington and some other famous rose gardens. In some, they won’t grow any other plants with the roses. Nothing but roses and mulch.” She made an unpleasant face, “But some like Gregg’s garden at Vintage Roses, have all kinds of flowers. They do the Chelsea Chop so in fall, when the roses start to look great again, there’s tens of thousand perennial flowers with the roses. It’s all about timing.”
“Chelsea Chop?” I asked. I’d been to the revered flower show. But it was too crowded so I hung out in the rare book tent. Another hole in my education that Ruth could see right through. She let my question slide and said, “Chop the Amsonia too! Don’t you think it will sprawl all over the place?” I grabbed it’s feathered stems, held them like a pony tail and cut all at once. Released, the naked stems boinged out but I knew that by fall, the Amsonia would look all compact, , natural but not floppy.
She gently took the conversation back to one of the holes in my education.
“When they’re preparing plants for the Chelsea Flower Show, they prune the perennials months ahead, just like we’re doing. It keeps them compact and they can better time things to flower together. That way, when they take them to the show, all the different summer perennials can be in flower at once. That’s how they make those impossible combinations. It’s all about spring pruning that happens months before flowering.”
“So they call it the Chelsea Chop? Why do people need cutesy names for things? It’s simply spring pruning.”
“I guess people love those sorts of things don’t they? Don’t we? It seems silly here, gardening in the hot sand dunes but it helps us remember. Let’s stop for the day. You’ll like the wood cut prints in my copy of Aesop’s Fables.”
Fables, I guess, are kind of cutesy way to remember things too.
Note: Decades later, every time I prune spring perennials, this memory runs through my mind. Of course I can’t recall exact words from thirty years ago. The conversation represents the gist of how she taught me about the Chelsea Chop. It's my own style of Aesop's fable. Other Perennials to Cut back in May include: Amsonia, Aster, Boehmeria, Caryopteris, Chrysanthemum, Cuphea Helianthus, Phlox, Solidago, Tagetes, Tradescantia, Vernonia and even the large-growing Lantanas like ‘Miss Huff'.’
Please help build my substack by sharing with your gardening friends who like to read!
Chelsea Chop or Spring Perennial Pruning ?