Cleaning Garden Can Be 'Shear' Joy

by KYW's Phran Novelli

Let's clean up, shall we? Off with their heads! Hand me the hedge clippers – I'm going after the basil. And the mint and all the other herbs that have gotten too big – (it'll help keep them from going to seed and getting bitter).

On to the flowerbeds – whack the browned yarrow and all those little Dianthus too. It was my mom who taught me this trick years ago; her Dianthus were blooming again and she told me she'd sheared them a few weeks earlier with the hedge clippers when she got tired of looking at all those dead flower heads. You can use this quick clean-up for all kinds of plants with more withered blossoms than you can be bothered to pick off one by one. Go ahead, shear the shrub roses – they're yours, and they're covered with browned blooms; you can prune them more carefully later if you want.

Your flowerbeds will look better presto – and you might even coax another flush of bloom out of lots of things. So, if you've got plants with too many flowers past their prime, shear them off, sweep 'em up, and get on with your day - you've got better things to do.

(Photo by Phran Novelli)