In this short and snippy episode, we dig into a classic gardening technique known as the Chelsea Chop. Named after the iconic RHS Chelsea Flower Show, this late spring/early summer pruning method can help home gardeners promote bushier growth, delay blooms for season-long color, and support pollinators with flowering perennials in the garden.
If you’re looking to add more beauty to your veggie garden and boost the productivity of your perennials, this episode is your green-thumb guide to giving those flowers a haircut.
Today on Just Grow Something we're talking:
- What the Chelsea Chop is and why it's done
- Ideal plants for the technique (Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Sedum, Phlox, and more)
- Different pruning strategies and how to choose the right one
- The timing of the chop based on your climate and plant maturity
- Benefits for both aesthetics and garden health (more airflow, fewer pests!)
The Chelsea Chop is more than just a cut—it's a strategic move to shape your garden and support pollinators. Let's dig in!
References and Resources:
Save 20% on your new own-root rose plant atHeirloomRoses.com with code JUSTGROW https://heirloomroses.com
RHS Chelsea Chop: https://www.rhs.org.uk/pruning/chelsea-chop
BBC Gardener's World, How to Do the Chelsea Chop: https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/how-to-do-the-chelsea-chop/
Just Grow Something: https://justgrowsomething.com
Just Grow Something Merch andDownloads: https://justgrowsomething.com/shop
Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group:https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18YgHveF5P/Check out how you can become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JustGrowSomething
Bonus content for supporters of the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/justgrowsomethingAmazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/justgrowsomething
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I have been pretty upfront about the fact that I'm trying to add
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a little more beauty to my gardens this year rather than
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just strictly functionality. And part of that has involved
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planting flowering perennials. I'm just getting started in
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this, obviously, and it has been some time since I took my
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ornamentals classes in college, so I feel like I'm learning all
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over again. And that means channeling the
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wisdom of the Royal Horticultural Society.
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So today I'm just grow something.
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We're getting snippy, but in a benefit, official way, we're
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talking about the Chelsea chop. Now, before you panic, no, this
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isn't some new haircut trend. The Chelsea chop is a gardening
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technique that's all about timing your pruning just right
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to shape your plants, stagger your blooms and make the
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blooming perennials in your garden just a bit more tidy and
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delightful. So grab your shears and maybe a
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cup of tea and let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen, and what started
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as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
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passion for growing food. Now, as a market farmer and
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horticulturist, I want to help you do the same on this podcast.
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I am your friend in the garden, teaching evidence.
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Based techniques. To help you grow your favorites
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and build confidence in your own garden space.
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So grab your. Garden journal and a cup of
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coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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OK, so this is going to be a fairly short episode.
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Not only is there just a ton of stuff going on around here, but
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we finally got a break in the rain.
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It has been raining what feels like non-stop for like the
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entire month of May and you know, probably even from
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mid-april, which normally, OK, this is kind of our rainy
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season, but it's been an almost everyday occurrence, which has
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not only made it difficult to get the summer loving plants
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into the gardens, but it's also made harvesting and, you know,
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pruning and trellising and wedding and all of those fun
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activities very difficult to do. So we are on day, I want to see
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it. Today is maybe day three that we
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have not seen any rain. And it looks like I get one more
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day of that, and then it's supposed to start raining again
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and not stop for an entire week. So this is going to be a short,
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sweet episode so I can get back outside and see what I can do
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about trying to get caught up on some tasks.
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So. But if you have also been
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working toward like, beautifying your vegetable gardens like me
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this season, I thought that this topic was timely and that I
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would share. So we're going to jump right
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into it. OK, The Chelsea chop, First
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things first, what exactly are we chopping and why are we
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chopping it? OK, the Chelsea chop gets its
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name from the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea
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Flower Show in the UK, and that takes place every year in late
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May. The Chelsea chop is a pruning
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technique that is performed somewhere around late May into
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early June, depending on where you are, and it coincides with
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the show, hence the Chelsea chop, right?
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That is our cue in a lot of areas that it's time to prune
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certain herbaceous perennials by about 1/3 to 1/2 to encourage
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bushier growth and delayed flowering.
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So this is going to help control the plant size, it's going to
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prevent those plants from sort of flopping over, and it's also
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going to extend the flowering season in addition to just
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promoting a more robust plant structure.
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If you think of this is in terms of a annual vegetable in our
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garden, you might think in some very long season areas of
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Peppers. So when you hear people talking
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about topping their Peppers, this is the same sort of idea.
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Even though we're working with perennials here, when you're
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looking at an annual like a pepper plant, if you're topping
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that plant, meaning you are chopping off the top of it, you
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are trying to get it to be more bushy and you want it to give
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you more flowers and you're controlling that plant size a
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little bit and you're just kind of giving it a stronger base.
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That is essentially the same thing that we're talking about
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here with our flowering perennials.
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Now, OK, you might be wondering, why are we talking, you know, so
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much about flowers? This is a vegetable podcast
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because my gardening friends, your perennials are pollinator
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magnets. So if we can stagger the blooms,
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that is going to mean more bees, more butterflies, more
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beneficial bugs for our tomatoes and our cucumbers and our
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squashes and stuff, OK? Plus, if we're sort of
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maintaining these perennials, these herbaceous flowering
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plants and we're keeping them tidier, especially around our
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vegetable gardens, this is going to mean we have a little bit
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better airflow. There are fewer hiding spots for
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some of those garden pests that we don't want in there and a
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little bit more room for our own movement and harvesting, OK.
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If we can extend the bloom time of all of our sort of companion
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perennials, the Chelsea chop is basically going to ensure a more
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continuous food source for the pollinators that we're trying to
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bring in, which of course is going to benefit our vegetable
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crops. It also means that we're going
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to kind of lend a little bit towards the aesthetics, which is
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something that I kind of have a problem with.
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It's going to help us be a little bit more organized, a
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little bit more visually appealing in the garden, and
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it's going to sort of integrate those ornamentals more
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seamlessly with our edible areas of our garden.
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It also means less maintenance. So if you have shorter, sturdier
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plants, they're going to require less staking, they're going to
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be less prone to wind damage, and it's just going to make that
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garden upkeep a little bit more manageable.
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Now, not every plant loves a good haircut at this time of
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year. So let's talk about what
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candidates there are for this Chelsea chop method.
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OK, the first thing is that we are looking for summer and fall
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flowering herbaceous perennials. So things like our Echinacea or
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cone flower, rudbeckia or Black Eyed susans, sedum, phlox,
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Monarda, which is B balm, Bellflower, Yarrow, cat mint,
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hellenium, these are all really good candidates for this pruning
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method. We do not want to be doing this
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with any of our early bloomers. So anything that is blooming in
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the spring, we don't want to do this with anything that tends to
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grow as a single stem. We don't want to be doing this
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with any of our woody shrubs and we just don't want to be
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touching anything that's already flowering.
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This is for the sort of almost ready plants that are out there,
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which means that the timing on this for your garden may not
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actually coincide with the Chelsea Flower Show.
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So if you're in a warmer climate than I am, the time for this may
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be in very early May. If you're in a cooler climate,
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this actually may not happen until late June.
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So that's why we want to watch what our plants are doing and
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we're not relying on the timing of something that's happening in
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a climate that is much different from our own gardens.
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If I had just followed these recommendations during the time
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when the Chelsea Flower Show was going on, so again, I think it
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was this year was actually the second to last week in May, I'd
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have to go back and look. But even that last two weeks in
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May and first week in June, if I had applied this method to my
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kind of wild Yarrow that grows in and around some of my garden
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beds, that Yarrow was already putting up its blooms.
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It was already flowering. So I actually would have
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decreased the number of blooms that I was getting versus
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increasing. So just be very specific when it
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comes to what's going on in your gardening, kind of pay attention
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to what's going on with your own herbaceous perennials to decide
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when it's a good time to apply this method.
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So it's just a good reminder for us when the Chelsea Flower Show
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comes around that it's time to start looking at this, right?
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So if we're talking about in ground beds, then and of course
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we're planting these flowering perennials as sort of companions
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and also visually appealing. This method is going to be ideal
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for those larger perennials that might over shadow our vegetable
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plants. So things that maybe we have
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planted around the outer edges that tend to get very tall, but
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we're not necessarily wanting to take advantage of that shadowing
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effect that they might have on some of our vegetables and or
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maybe we want them to be taller later on in the season, right?
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So maybe we want to use them as a shadowing effect or a shading
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effect for some of our vegetables, but we want that to
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happen when the sun really starts to get hot.
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So we want to keep them short in the meantime, using this method
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is going to kind of keep those ones in check.
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So it's going to, you know, ensure the adequate sunlight for
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the stuff that's in the vegetable garden and also
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helping the air circulation until those plants really start
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to get taller. If we're talking about, you
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know, flowering perennials in and around outside of our raised
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garden beds, then doing this printing method is just going to
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kind of help to maintain a nice tidy appearance.
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It's going to prevent those perennials from sort of spilling
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over the edges if we have them inside raised beds.
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And it's also going to help make you the harvest of the
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vegetables easier if we're, you know, sort of spacing them in
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together because they're just going to take up less space
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after we've pruned them, right? If you are growing these
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perennials in pots, then this method is going to help to kind
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of manage the size of those. It's going to encourage that
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more bushy, fuller growth instead of the tall kind of
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wonky growth, which is going to just enhance the overall look.
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If you were doing this on a patio or on a balcony garden,
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OK, we don't need any fancy tools for this.
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You just need a pair of, you know, sharp, clean garden
00:10:05
shears. You might want a bucket of some
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sort to, you know, drop the bucket or drop the clippings
00:10:09
into and then take it over to your compost bin.
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Maybe some gloves. If you are growing plants that
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maybe give off a lot in terms of aromatic oils that might kind
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of, you know, make your your hands kind of, you know, it
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feels sticky or tingly or whatever.
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Then maybe you want to use some gloves.
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The the magic window on this again is generally for a lot of
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air. It's, it's late May to early
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June when your plants are about half of what they're expected
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size is. And so I think it's important to
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mention that if these are new plants to you, you likely don't
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want to be doing this in their first year.
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So if you have just planted these, I would say let them get
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settled in and do their thing the first season without doing a
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bunch in terms of pruning. We don't want to shock those
00:10:59
plants, but we do, you know, want to be thoughtful in how
00:11:04
much we allow them to bloom too. So we may want to be snipping
00:11:07
those buds off to get them to sort of focus their energy into
00:11:12
the root development that first season, but we may not want to
00:11:15
be pruning a ton of the new growth back because that might
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actually inhibit what they're able to do over the winter time
00:11:22
and come back, right? But for all of our second year
00:11:25
and beyond perennials, I think this is a good thing to do.
00:11:28
And at that point, we kind of know what their size is supposed
00:11:32
to be. And we can determine when it's a
00:11:34
good time to prune them back based on when they are about
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half that size. And again, if you're in a cooler
00:11:39
climate, this is going to be later.
00:11:40
If you're in a warmer climate, this might be earlier.
00:11:43
Again, we're just looking at our summer and fall blooming
00:11:47
perennials. OK, before we continue with our
00:11:50
deep dive into the Chelsea Chop, let's take a moment to talk
00:11:53
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00:11:56
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00:11:58
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00:12:01
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00:12:05
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00:12:09
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00:12:12
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00:12:14
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00:12:17
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00:12:21
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00:12:23
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00:12:40
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00:12:44
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00:12:47
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00:12:50
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00:13:12
So choose a suitable perennial that is not yet blooming.
00:13:16
And then there's a couple of different approaches to this.
00:13:18
You can either cut the entire plant back by 1/3 to about 1/2
00:13:26
to give you a later more compact bloom, or you can cut just the
00:13:34
front or outer sections and leave the back to continue to
00:13:39
grow. So this is going to give you
00:13:41
like staggered flowering times. So you're going to have these
00:13:44
early blooms in the back and then the round the sides and the
00:13:47
front is actually going to bloom later on.
00:13:49
So you get kind of staggered flowering and then you also get
00:13:53
sort of a fuller look and around the front and the sides.
00:13:56
Or if this technique makes you nervous and you don't know what,
00:13:59
you're not sure that you know what you're doing, which is kind
00:14:01
of where I'm at, you can just cut like a few stems here and
00:14:07
there. And this is going to be a really
00:14:09
conservative option to kind of get you used to.
00:14:11
OK, what's what's going to happen here?
00:14:13
How is this going to work? And it's still going to give us
00:14:16
great results, right? So that's kind of the camp that
00:14:19
I'm in this year is like, all right, let me just cut a few of
00:14:22
these back here and there just a little bit.
00:14:25
I'm not even quite doing 1/3. And then I'm going to let and
00:14:29
see what happens. This is specific to my sedums.
00:14:32
This is going to be easier for me to do with my sedums because
00:14:35
I've had my sedums for quite some time.
00:14:37
And so I know what size they're supposed to be.
00:14:39
And I know what they end up looking like when they flower.
00:14:42
And they are really tall and and wonky and they kind of fall over
00:14:47
and they get to be kind of messy.
00:14:50
So that's where I'm starting this year.
00:14:52
The only things that I'm touching are my sedums and I'm
00:14:55
probably only cutting them back by maybe 25%.
00:14:59
OK, I'm just being very careful here.
00:15:01
So that's OK. There's nothing wrong with the
00:15:03
conservative approach, right? So when we make the cut,
00:15:06
basically all we want to do is snip above the leaf node.
00:15:11
So that is where the leaf is emerging from the stem.
00:15:16
So remember on all of our plants we have the nodes, which is
00:15:19
where the the the leaves come out.
00:15:21
And then there is that section of of stem in between those
00:15:25
nodes and we call that the inter node.
00:15:27
So we want to snip just above a leaf node and we want an angled
00:15:32
cut so that we can prevent water from sitting on that wound right
00:15:38
there. This is similar to how we
00:15:40
harvest our broccoli or, you know, if we're looking to try to
00:15:44
get more side shoots coming up from the broccoli, we want to do
00:15:46
this at an angle because we're going to leave the plant sitting
00:15:49
out there in the ground and we don't want that water sitting on
00:15:52
that flat surface and causing it to sort of rot on that cut
00:15:56
space. It's the same idea with these
00:16:00
flowering herbaceous perennials. We want to cut them at an angle
00:16:03
so that we don't introduce any kind of rot or any kind of
00:16:07
fungal diseases from that water. OK.
00:16:09
And that's it. There's no fancy treatments to
00:16:12
this. There's no fertilizer you got to
00:16:13
put on here to make it do anything up.
00:16:15
It's just just let the plant do its thing.
00:16:17
It's going to respond with shorter, bushier growth and a
00:16:20
stronger root system to boot. And of course this technique
00:16:25
works because it's temporarily stressing the plant, but in a
00:16:31
very controlled way, which redirects its energy into side
00:16:36
shoots and into root development.
00:16:38
So this is obviously university extension.
00:16:40
Studies have done this. The Royal Horticultural Society
00:16:43
has done trials with this. They have shown that it
00:16:45
increases the bloom density, it leads to better stem strength,
00:16:49
so less flopping around out there, and it's going to extend
00:16:53
those blooming periods, especially in the more temperate
00:16:56
zone. So here is your Chelsea chop
00:17:03
checklist. Pick your perennials, OK?
00:17:06
Are they summer or fall bloomers?
00:17:08
Those are the ones that we want to be pruning back.
00:17:09
We don't want our early ones. Check the timing.
00:17:12
Are they about halfway to their normal full size?
00:17:17
Choose your approach whether you want to do a full chop that cuts
00:17:20
them back 1/3 to 1/2, if you're going to do a half a chop, which
00:17:24
means cutting it in the front and the sides and leaving the
00:17:26
back tall. Or are we just going to do sort
00:17:29
of a selective snip here and there, The more conservative
00:17:32
approach that I likely am going with this year.
00:17:34
And then just get cutting and keep an eye on what happens.
00:17:38
You're going to learn more about your plants by just doing it.
00:17:41
Then a dozen blog posts or magazine articles or podcasts
00:17:45
could ever teach you, right? Take notes, garden journal, take
00:17:49
notes, experiment, and don't be afraid to have fun with it.
00:17:52
Because despite what I often talk about, gardening is as much
00:17:56
of an art as it is a science. Until next time, my gardening
00:18:00
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:18:02
talk again soon.