The sunny perennial beds are still lovely but passing, the gardener is busy. It's the end of May and flowers are fading day by day. For all of those flowers, we pay the price, it's called deadheading. We tiptoe, bend, pivot and stretch to remove those flowers that are making a mess of things. The peonies drop their petals in a heap on the ground. The bearded iris finish in a twist of mush, refusing to drop, hanging on and making new flowers look bad. The roses drop petals that turn brown, seemingly overnight.

We drag around wheelbarrow, tarp or other vessel to gather up the finishing pieces. It often begins with helleborus, spent flowers quickly become large seed heads. The art of deadheading helleborus is best done sitting down, each flowering stem should be removed right down to the ground. The peonies are cut at a leaf juncture, preferably just under other leaves so the cut doesn't show. With iris you have to be careful, the finished flowering stalk is cut, as close to the ground as you can. Bending around in the iris can be tricky, one wrong move and you hear the snap of a bud or open flower that you just detached. I hate that!

With the biennials or short lived perennials, I am ruthless. Case in point is aquilegia or columbine, I not only remove the seed heads, but also the current leaves (they grow back quickly), especially this year when columbine is marred by leaf miner. A few seed heads are left to ripen, you must keep track of which colors were best to let them go to seed.

Dianthus is best done with scissors, even hedge trimmers will work. Just a quick snip of flowering stems as they sit above the foliage. Some perennials go without deadheading, examples include, brunnera, Dicentra spectabilis or bleeding heart, corydalis and polygonatum. Even more reason to plant them.

Next the daylilies and lilies will flower. Daylilies are not bulbs, lilies are. With the daylilies you can show tough love. Cut back the stems and even the foliage when it looks tired. The leaves will regrow, especially if you water well afterwards. Lilies on the other hand are bulbs and enough foliage needs to remain to feed the bulb. Cut the top of the stem, where the seed pods form, nothing more. Be careful when you cut them to put in a vase, certainly don't take more than thirty percent of the plant. For that they will thrive and grow stronger every year.

The price we pay for all of that loveliness is definitely worth it. What a splendid spring its been.