How to Prune Columbine

Columbine adds color to rock gardens, wildflower plantings and in both perennial and annual beds. The columbine flower is a short-lived perennial, surviving for up to four years before it requires replanting. Pruning helps extend the blossoms during the summer months while also preventing the plants from becoming messy and unkempt. Selectively trimming most but not all of the plants allows the columbine to self-seed, so you do not have to replant them every few years.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

things you’ll need:

• Shears

1. Remove the dead blossoms from columbine as soon as they begin to wilt after their first spring flowering. Cut or pinch off the withered blossoms 1/4 inch beneath the flower head to prevent seed formation.
2. Cut back the entire plant to one-half its height after the first flush of blooming is complete, using a pair of shears. Continue to water and care for the columbine and it will bloom a second time in late spring or early summer.
3. Leave the wilted flowers in place on columbine until after the seeds reach maturity and drop from the plant. Alternatively, prune away the more obvious wilted flowers, leaving about one-third to one-half the flowers in place to set and drop seed.
4. Cut the entire plant back to the ground in late summer or fall once the foliage has begun to die off.

Tips & Warnings

• If you can’t deadhead during the first flush of bloom, cutting back the plant afterward should still lead to a second blooming period, as long as most of the seed pods don’t mature.

• Do not prune plants with dirty shears. Always wash them first in a solution of one part household bleach and 10 parts water. Dirty shears can spread disease and insect eggs from plant to plant.