Margaret Hogan asked 11 years ago
I have a number of Erysimum (Bowles Mauve) plants. Should these be trimmed back to ground level or just pruned and will they grow back again?
1 Answers
Gerry Daly Staff answered 6 years ago
Bowles purple wallflower is not long-lived and usually the plants begin to fail after a few years. Light tipping back of shoots that have flowered can prolong the life of the plants, but hard cutting back can cause them to die.
The best way to maintain a continuity of presence of this plant in the garden is to take off a few side-shoots from time to time and push them into a slit made in the ground with a spade, then firming back the soil around the cutting. Many of them will root and you will have a sequence of young plants coming along to replace the older ones that fade out.
