Shearing perennials in mid-summer

by Liz
(Ocean City, Maryland)

my daisy plants have been looking beautiful, although mixed now with some dead heads, I am cutting for arrangements, but have heard I should give it complete "hair cut" for a second late season bloom. What do you say about this? I am located in mid-atlantic region, Maryland.
Thank you!

Doug says there are only a few perennials that will respond with a second bloom if you cut them back. Your best bet with any kind of daisy is to deadhead them religiously - this will force the plant to develop new blooms.

The other thing I've done quite successfully is to cut them back in early summer to force them to bush out. When they get about 12-inches tall, I'll cut them back to 8-inches. This forces the plant to develop side shoots and I get a lot more flowers from a single plant.

Combine this with dead-heading and you'll get a ton of flowers from almost any daisy.

The problem I'm having with your question about pruning daisies is that some daisies behave differently than others.

A shasta tends to bloom heavily and then sporadically - unless you have something like 'Becky' and it tends to rebloom easier than other varieties. None will rebloom heavily unless you deadhead.

Some daisies - for example in the mum family or related plants, tend to give you a single bloom - and the timing of those depends very much on the breeding.

So there may not be a one size fits all kind of answer with shearing perennials like daisies in mid-summer.

Again, as a rule of thumb the plants that do rebloom (geraniums are a great example) have to be sheared right after blooming to get them to rebloom in September.

My guess on this question is that you'll get a better rebloom if you deadhead and feed/water properly with a generic daisy plant. Particularly if your plant is reblooming but only sporadically. This answer is based on an end of July answer.

If it were in early June - and you were looking for more blooms or heavier blooms, then I'd say prune about 1/3 of the plant off.

Hope that helps