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When and how to prune a coneflower is essential knowledge when cultivating perennials. After pruning, the plants can recover and prepare for the next season.
Cutting coneflowers: timing
Cutting sun hats involves little effort if the appropriate deadlines are met. Echinacea need regular pruning to keep them flowering and to prepare them for winter or the growing season. For this purpose there are two time periods for the cut:
- Spring before fresh shoots
- autumn after flowering
You can therefore choose when the coneflower should be cut. Autumn is sufficient in most cases if a clean cut is to be made before winter. If you want to have the flower decorations in your garden or in the bucket over the winter, you should choose spring. Potted plants in particular benefit from pruning in spring, as the above-ground plant material offers additional protection from the cold. You can make another form of pruning during the flowering period. Simply cut off the flowers as soon as they have faded. This stimulates the perennials to form a second flower until autumn.
Notice: Coneflowers that have not flowered in the first year must also be cut. In this case, all you have to do is adjust the cutting height so that you don't remove too much.
Pruning: preparation
You only have to prepare a little for the cut itself, since the plants are cut-resistant, you don't have to pay attention to any special points. The most important thing for this step is to have the garden tools ready to make the cut as effective as possible:
- secateurs
- optional: ruler or ruler
Source:Kor!An (Корзун Андрей), Echinacea purpurea 'White Swan' (in a flowerbed), Edited by Plantopedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
When using secateurs, you should make sure that they are thoroughly cleaned and sharpened before use. In this way you reduce the possible transmission of pathogens that would negatively affect the growth of coneflowers. This is especially necessary if you have previously cut a diseased plant. You can use a ruler to measure the distance to the floor, which in some cases has to be determined when cutting.
Cutting a coneflower: instructions
Once it's time to cut, you can do it quickly and effectively. The cutting height, which is determined by the age of the plant, is very important. Coneflowers are cut back to the ground once they reach four years of age, regardless of the season. They are robust enough for the outlasting organs to manage without winter protection, but this is not quite as pronounced in the younger specimens. For this reason, they are shortened to a height of ten to 15 centimeters. The cut is performed in the following way:
- clean location
- Example: remove foliage
- include plant
- cut as a bundle
You do not have to consider any other points when cutting. You can easily use the green and the dried flowers for different purposes, for example in the kitchen.
Tip: When the coneflower has faded and been cut, you can use the flowers for further propagation. Removing the spikes and tubular flowers reveals the beige seeds ready for sowing next year.