HELEN YEMM THORNY PROBLEMS

This week: TLC for weather-beaten perennials, how to pep up a pilea, and is repotting best done in spring?

Jean Chambers

asks if it is “safe” to cut back the messy remains of her Hesperantha coccinea, now that it has finally, in January, finished flowering. (I had to look this one up: this useful autumn-flowering perennial is familiar as Schizostylis coccinea

– why, oh why, do they mess around with plant names?)

has a similar kind of quandary. Her alstroemeria (variety unknown) hated last summer’s heat and gave up the ghost, then surprised her by popping up in the autumn and trying to flower, only to be nobbled by early frost. Can she clear away the sad-looking foliage she asks, or should it be left as “frost protection”?

Both of these rhizomatous plants are totally hardy perennials. They have acted slightly “out of character” because of weird weather. The hesperantha is semi-evergreen by nature and needs a good tidy-up now, or in the spring when the weather has done its worst. The alstroemeria remains can be cleared away. Alstroemeria tends to go prematurely dormant in the autumn (as Susan’s initially did) but pops up again whenever it is mild.

Herbaceous perennials are frost hardy, dying back in winter and needing to be cleaned up before they regrow in spring. There are some notable hardy evergreen exceptions: hellebores, bergenias, and marginally hardy penstemons, whose tall greenery briefly protects the new season’s flowering shoots beneath.

Susan Everitt

Replacing some decking with paving stones is giving an excellent opportunity to repot in fresh compost a number of substantial container plants – among

Brian Haswell TIP OF THE WEEK

them climbing roses and a pieris. He wonders if repotting at this time of year will harm them.

Brian should bear in mind that all these woody plants would grow better, with greater protection from the elements, if they were planted directly in the ground. The exception may be the pieris, which needs ericaceous (lime-free) compost. Should the weather stay clement and the ground unfrosted (alas, at time of writing it seems that we might be “in for it” for the coming weeks) it would be fine to repot or plant. If not, he can delay until late March.

The same applies to

who is replanting a mixed border with plants that were temporarily heeled-in elsewhere.

Oglethorpe, Sandie

Sandie asks if she should wait until the soil warms up. These are presumably mainly herbaceous plants that are effectively dormant, so they won’t really notice as long as (and this is important for Brian and Sandie), the work is carried out swiftly and plant roots are not left exposed to cold, drying winds during the move.

FAFF IN FASHION A pottedneeds turning to look its best

By early-pruning once-flowering old shrub roses (e.g.‘Charles de Mills’ or removing at ground level one old shoot as well as last year’s hip-bearing top growth, you can minimise trampling underfoot newly emerging bulbs and border plants later. Follow up with feeding and mulching.