Nicola Hope

this week we're joined by gardener nicola hope to banish some myths about the chelsea chop ah to chelsea chop or not joe that's the question i've chopped hi joe and zoe chelsea flower show is a gorgeous floriferous memory now um we all had a fantastic time whether we were there or watching it on the tv

There is a horticultural technique associated with Chelsea called the Chelsea chop and a lot of people think that you have to do it during the week of Chelsea but that's actually not strictly true.

There are some really tough plants that can take a chop

right through till well i've been known to do a hampton court chop and hampton court flower show usually takes place at the beginning of july this is a lavatera cultivar named q rose and it is tough as old boots in fact it for some reason it has moved from that part of my garden over there over to this part of my garden and i'm thrilled because it is a really really good doer and flowers

well you can see that there are flower buds forming already now i'm going to be quite ruthless and i am going to chop it down by half you can do this with your secateurs and do it quite neatly you can go all the way down to above

a leaf node or where the leaf meets the stem take quite a lot off you can be even more cavalier and you can get some shears and just shear it down like you're cutting a hedge and this will bounce back

incredibly well.

It will make it branch out even further to make a compact shrub rather than a kind of a wafty shrub.

Another thing that you can do is reduce half of it by half.

Oh yeah.

But leave some of it alone to flower when it wants to flower.

But it's staggered and you'll be attracting butterflies and bees and other pollinators into your garden over a more extended period of time.

They've done a re-release.