My yarrow last year got 3 ft tall and started to look leggy and fell over , I ended up staking it. Is there a way I can prevent this?

I too struggle with tall yarrow. I now cage my tall varieties. I never thought about cutting it back early. I have a large stand of Jungfrau. I'm going to experiment with it this year. I'll let you know later in the season how it went.

Do you know your variety?

I have now switched to only getting shorter varieties.

yes it is Proven Winners, Peach Firefly. The color is not what I would call peach, Sometimes it is, but mostly more raspberry. It is very pretty. But just gets tall and I wasn't expecting it to not hold itself up. I cut it back after it initially bloomed, and it did not reflush and looked pretty ratty.

Water sparingly and don't fertilize. It shouldn't flop.

Good to know Zoe! I cannot control the water and I generally don't fertilize except for initial planting. I'll cut out that step.

NMoasis said: Water sparingly and don't fertilize. It shouldn't flop.

I don't fertilize hardly anything in my garden, and I only water if it is absolutely needed. Last year we had construction work going on the house and I didn't really have time to do much in my garden, I planted yarrow purposely for it's ability to survive without attention. So those things did not cause my plant to sprawl all over. It is also planted in full sun, in rather clayish soil, I didn't amend it -only had a little mulch around the area for the weeds.

Hahaha, Jennifer, I always forget that some regions actually get rain! If your garden soil is rich, another thing you can do for yarrow and other Mediterranean plants like lavender, many Salvias, etc, is create a "lean" bed — one with sandy, even gravelly, well draining soil and limited humus (compost, not manure). It's difficult to incorporate some of those hot-climate plants into the richer beds without suffering floppiness, root rot or shortened lives.

I have the opposite problem here; it won't survive if it needs lots of water and nutrients. I have to create amended beds for veggies and hungry ornamentals.

Last year's Hidcote lavender and Moonshine yarrow did really well together!

Frilly, don't know what to suggest. You could try cutting back very early before the buds form. If you cut too late I think you'll get the equivalent of a sparse second-flush bloom.

That's what I was wondering if I cut it back I might lose blooms, don't know if they are already forming in there. Yes we too have issues w the rain/dry. It rains ALOT in the spring. Then turns off and is dry/hot for the summer. So it's hard to find plants that like that.

Just today I put some fencing around my yarrow. Wish I didn't have to. After it blooms, I cut it back by about a third or so. I don't know if cutting it back before it starts budding would help or not.

Yarrow can be cut back at various times and to various heights depending on the effect you want to achieve. It will regrow well from just about any treatment. Even mowing, in my experience with volunteers 😀It's irrepressible!

Tracy Disabato-Aust experimented with a variety of cutting-back timings on various perennials and wrote the book The Well-Tended Perennial Garden. It's very interesting. She adopted a dual height pruning strategy for some perennials , producing flowers at different seasons. Well worth reading. It's been around awhile, in the 3rd edition now.. Many libraries have it available, nice for a free read first to see if you want to own it.

Pat

I will see if I can find that, sounds like it might have some neat ideas.

@frillylily, Thank you for the thumb & acorn!

When I was checking on availability of the book , I think I saw a paperback version available at Target! For $19.99? If so another option might be to preview a copy there.

Pat
Edit: I just saw 3 hardcover copies of this in "good" condition for $5.59 each at Thriftbooks:
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/...

Find another book you'd like to bring the total over $10 and shipping is free! I love Thriftbooks! The books are almost always in better condition than rated. They have a generous free book policy for a small accumulated total purchase. I always look here first for used books. Sometimes they have new ones, too.

Pat

Edit: looks like the free shipping offer now starts with a $15 total purchase. Still a good deal! Versus: Amazon $3.99 shipping each book. Boo!

thank you! I've never heard of that place but I'll check it out.