Mid Summer Questions on Flowering Herbs
Answered by: Inge Poot
Question from: Jason Koulouras
Posted on: July 29, 1999

I am looking for some assistance on how to best treat some of my herbal flowering plants we bought from your farm:

Russian Comfrey ‘Bocking #14’ Ox Eye Daisy Mullein Bergamont Columbine

They have all flowered given the weather we have had this year and I am wondering whether I should cut them back to encourage more growth and/or if there is some way to possibly achieve another round of flowering (or should I just leave them). We are in zone 5a-5b borderline with plants all on south facing side in full sun. (Columbine in half sun)

To get comfrey and columbine to rebloom, cut back fairly hard. For ox-eye daisy and columbine, just cut off the seed heads. I don’t think that mullein will try again if you cut off the seed bearing part of the inflorescence, but if it is not too mature it might work. If you just leave it it will make seeds and give you lots of first year rosettes next year and flowers the following year.

Columbines and ox-eye daisies often set so many seed that they are too weak to survive the winter in our zone. Cutting them back will actually help them -if you won’t let too many seed heads form later on.

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