If you want to transform your flower beds this summer, there is one highly effective task to add to your to-do list this month. It is known as the “Chelsea Chop,” and while it might sound like a dramatic gardening manoeuvre, it is actually a simple, beginner-friendly technique used to manage plant growth and extend your colour season.
The technique takes its name from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as it’s typically carried out around the same time in late May. In simple terms, the Chelsea Chop involves cutting back sections of herbaceous perennials during late spring. By doing this, you encourage the plant to grow more side shoots rather than continuing to stretch upwards.
The result is a fuller, bushier plant that produces a greater number of flowers later in the season. It’s particularly effective for late-summer and autumn bloomers such as heleniums, echinacea, sedum varieties and phlox.
These plants tend to grow tall and can become floppy, but this method helps keep them compact and sturdy.
The technique has been highlighted in a brand new video, ‘What to do in your garden RIGHT NOW! (May Edition)’, published by BBC Gardeners’ World featuring Nick Bailey, alongside Arit Anderson, Alan Titchmarsh and David Hurrion.
According to the magazine, doing the Chelsea Chop can delay the flowering of perennials by four to six weeks.
In the video, Arit Anderson said: “In May, we really want to make the most of our herbaceous perennials and there’s a technique that can really help them to keep working hard for us throughout the summer, and it’s called the Chelsea Chop.
“The reason why we want to do this is to prolong flowering, so it’s a way of having some flowers now, but also having flowers later in the season. It also helps certain plants to not get too leggy and flog over.
“Things like sedums are notoriously open and splayed if they get too big going further into the season. And it’s just a really good way of making sure that throughout the garden that we can keep the succession of flowering going.”
There are two different ways to do the Chelsea Chop. The first is to cut back entire clumps by around one-third to a half, depending on how tall or leggy the plant is. This will delay flowering across the whole plant.
Alternatively, if you’d prefer a staggered display, try trimming only some of the stems. For example, cutting back every other stem or just one side of the plant allows part of it to flower as normal, while the rest blooms later. This creates a longer-lasting show in your borders.
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