Why I Oughta...

One of the perennials in our front yard IB2DWs bed that performs well AND behaves well is Cat's Pajamas Nepeta.  There are three of them tucked into that long, linear bed.  And they put on a nice early Summer blue-flower show.  They're also NOT bullies in the garden.  They don't take over and push others around. That early Summer bloom cycle means that the spent flower heads are here all Summer long.  What to do about it?  Deadhead them.  Or, give them the 'Chelsea Chop'. I grabbed my snips and pruned off all the long stems with flower heads.  There's quite a mass of material after pruning all three: I should have taken a 'before' picture.  Because...all I have is the 'after'.  You can see them below.  Nicely pruned back to little orbs.  The third one is tucked in behind the blue Fescue grasses.

I planted a trio of Cat's Pajamas Nepeta (along with some Blue Fescue) out front in the bed IB2DWs this Spring and it was the FIRST Nepeta that I've planted.  One of the features of Nepeta is that it can take a haircut after the first bloom - to both push a second flush of flowers but also to keep the plant neat and tidy.   In the online gardening world, you'll hear people talk about the ' Chelsea Chop ' - where you prune things back in late May to get that second flush.  More here on the Chelsea Chop .   I went ahead and pruned back these three Nepeta.  You can see that in the photo below showing the three pruned and cleaned up along with the pile of plant material that I pruned out laying in the middle of the photo - to show how much I took off these perennials.   From a purely technical perspective, you might be wondering:  Is this a " Chelsea Chop "?  The answer?  Maybe?  But, probably...Not really.  I think the ...