Tips for cutting flowers, pruning summer growth in Western WA

Near the end of July, the late summer blooms of dahlias, sunflowers and phlox take over the flower garden while harvest of tomatoes, cucumbers and beans allow home gardeners to taste their rewards.

Keep all these plants growing with deep watering but try not to wet the foliage as warm nights can encourage leaf fungal infections.

Take advantage of your backyard bounty by harvesting beans, zukes and cukes while they are young and tender. The more you pick, the more you get for many crops, so make harvest a daily event — preferably right before eating.

Q. Thank you for your daily garden tips on Instagram and Facebook. I have learned a lot! Earlier you showed a tip on cutting lilies from the garden and you said to leave as much of the stem and foliage as possible. So, my question is about cutting roses. Should I try to leave as much stem as possible on the plant when cutting roses from my garden? — Beginning gardeners, Email

A. Harvesting roses from homegrown plants means you should cut the stem down to a joint or node where you see foliage emerging that has five leaflets. This is the point where a new branch will then sprout with more rosebuds.

But, as a beginning gardener, remember that your plants are forgiving and they do not know these rules. I have harvested blooms from shrub roses by shearing them back by 2 to 3 feet and ignoring all the rules. Pruning your roses to shape them up as you gather roses for a vase is the best way to harvest.

Learn to look for the node on the stem that faces outward rather than in, towards the middle of the plant. If you cut just above an outside bud this will force the new growth to create an open vase-like shape. Then the buds get better sunlight and air circulation.

Welcome to gardening, you’ll learn quickly and thanks for following my social media feeds!

Q. What about my wisteria? It is growing wild with tangling branches, and perhaps you said to prune it early in the spring? I must have forgotten. Can I give my wisteria vine a drastic haircut now? — W.H. Enumclaw

A. Yes! People come before plants, so if a vine is getting too ambitious or a shrub is blocking a path just take control of the situation with some sharp shears.

Pruning after blooming is the general rule of green thumb, so it would not be good to prune wisteria in early spring. The best time to shorten up long branches is after the wisteria blooms fade and then to tidy up again in mid to late summer.

You do want to leave at least two nodes or growth buds on the branches that you shorten as these buds will make the flowers for next year.

You also can cut back any low-growing vines that emerge from the main trunk of the wisteria and tie up the woody branches of this fast-growing vine to train the growth over the support system.

Wait – you do have a sturdy structure that is not your house, right? Wisteria allowed to grow on roofs and homes can be very destructive.

In my own garden I have eliminated most of the pruning by letting my 35-year-old wisteria vine climb up a 60-foot cedar tree. This way the cedar tree breaks out into blooms every May and I just shorten up the few vines that have been trained to grow over the nearby pergola. So far the tree and the wisteria both look healthy.

Q. Summer has been hard on my raspberries, hydrangeas and blueberries and some of my perennial plants also have brown, dry leaves. The raspberries look dead. Can I cut them back now? — J., Email

A. When it comes to raspberries and most perennials, if it is brown, cut it down. Brown leaves are never going to turn green again and by pruning the spent raspberry canes to the ground after you harvest, you will be preventing disease and encouraging new growth that will emerge for next summer’s crop.

Get snippy with heat-damaged foliage as well. Life is too short to put up with ugly plants and damaged foliage.

Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of several books. Reach her at binettigarden.com.