Perennial wallflowers

duncan.smith775

Hi
i have several perennial wallflowers. The Bowles Mauve flowers it’s socks off with just a little deadheading.  I also have a red one and a yellow one.  They have flowered very early and have been beautiful but now the flowers are dying off and the leaves are turning yellow and the whole plants look as if they’re about to die.  Should I prune them quite hard or just cut off the dead flowers.  I am rather disappointed as I expected them to flower for the whole summer like the mauve.  Can anyone help please.
Thanks Duncan

Butterfly66

My red and orange flower for just a few months too - I think they were Fire King and Vulcan (from memory) I tidy them up and then just leave them be to come back the next year. I left the spent flowerheads on some hoping they would self-seed, which they did do in some spots.

JennyJ

I've got a yellow one and one that is kind of orangey-purpley-red (unnamed from DIY chain). Neither is anything like as prolific as Bowles' Mauve. Dead-heading and feeding helps a bit, but they still don't go on all summer like Bowles' Mauve does.

And none of them are particularly long-lived plants. They tend to turn up their toes and die after a few years, so I take cuttings every couple of years so that I have replacements.

Chrissy the gardener

I take heal cuttings from mine and so they are ready to replace the old plants about every third year, if not they become very woody.

Ffoxglove

Hi! Sorry to jump on this thread but I have a wallflower I'm in love with: red jep.

 I used to have BM but it was too tall. This flowers and flower all year in my shasdy border but how and when do I prune to make sure it doesn't get leggy?

JennyJ

Thanks @Ffoxglove, I think that's what one of my unnamed ones is. It doesn't seem as robust as BM, so I haven't pruned it other than taking off the spent flower spikes. I've got cuttings growing on now, so the parent might get a more severe chop when it stops flowering.