So, the heather in my garden was looking pretty sorry for itself. You know, after all the flowers die back, it just gets all leggy and a bit wild. Decided it was time to give it a proper haircut, get it back in shape for next year.
What I Got Up To
It was one of those jobs I’d been putting off, but you just gotta get on with it sometimes. The main idea was just to tidy them up and hopefully get them to grow a bit thicker, not all spindly like they were trying to be.
Didn’t need much, really. Just my usual stuff for a garden tidy:
- My trusty old pair of shears.
- A bucket for the clippings, though it filled up fast.
I started with the biggest clump, just to get a feel for it. The main thing was to snip off all those dead flower heads. And then I took off a bit of the green growth just below them too. You don’t want to be shy, but you also don’t want to go crazy.
Learned a while back you’ve got to be careful not to cut right down into the really old, brown, woody stems. Heather doesn’t like that much, apparently, and might not grow back from there. So, I made sure I was always cutting where there was still some green showing. Just worked my way around each plant, trying to get a sort of rounded, compact shape. They looked a bit scalped at first, I won’t lie.
All Done, What Now?
Ended up with a massive pile of clippings. Filled up the green bin pretty quick, that did. Could have composted them, I guess, but it was just easier this time round to get rid of them that way.
Stepped back to have a proper look when I was all done. Yeah, they looked a bit bare, a bit more severe than before. But definitely neater. The big hope now is that they’ll bounce back with loads of fresh growth. That’s the whole point of it, isn’t it?
Gave them a bit of a water, just to settle the soil around them. Now it’s just a waiting game, see what happens. Fingers crossed they’ll put on a good show next flowering season. You do your bit, and then the plants do theirs, hopefully!
