The Well-Tended Perennial Garden The Essential Guide to Planting and Pruning Techniques, Third Edition

foliage can remain for the winter.

Plants that were not cut back usually

blacken and turn mushy with frost and

are best cut down at this point.

other maintenance Best

performance in poor, well-draining,

alkaline soils. Tolerates some drought.

Roots can spread rapidly to invasive

proportions, particularly in cool

northern gardens; not as hearty in the

South. Requires division every 2–3

years in the spring or fall.

Centranthus ruber

Jupiter’s beard

caprifoliaceae

Fragrant pink or reddish flowers in clusters;

gray-green leaves

18–36 in. high; 24 in. wide

Full sun

Blooms June–August

Zones 5–8

pruning Deadhead to lateral buds as

flowers are spent, to encourage bloom

from late spring to early summer and

sporadically into August. Flowers

longer in cool conditions. Plants are

prolific seeders under favorable

conditions; deadhead if seeding is not

desired. Where plants bloom early and

then stop in the heat of summer, or if

plants fall after flowering, shearing by

a third to half after the first bloom

often results in a second crop in

August. This perennial is often

short-lived, and it may be that plants

deplete their energy reserves with so

much flower production and then are

unable to form buds for the next

season’s shoots. To prevent this from

occurring, the whole plant can be cut

back to 6–8 in. in late August or early

September to stimulate vegetative

growth, which may increase the

plant’s overwintering survival. Do not

cut again for the winter; clean up in

the spring.

other maintenance Prefers

infertile, well-draining, neutral to

alkaline soil. Divide in the spring or

fall every 1–3 years.

Centrathus ruber