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How To Neatly Trim Your Day Lily Plants After They're Done Flowering
By PEG ALOI
Once day lilies are done blooming, the foliage can sometimes become a bit messy — but it's easy to clean up these plants and keep them looking neat for the entire season.
You basically have three choices: You can let the foliage fade, and cut it back in late autumn, leave it until spring, or cut the foliage back to 2-3 inches above the soil line.
If your plants are re-bloomers, you won't want to cut back the foliage until after that second bloom period. If they aren’t, cut the foliage back in late summer or early autumn.
The first thing to do is to pull away any dead leaves from the base of the plant. You can also deadhead spent blooms to make room for the new flowers.
You can use large garden shears or hand-held pruners to clear away dead or dried foliage and expose the base of the plant. If your lily is large, trim it in several sections.
A few days after this, you will see the first shoots of new growth, and the foliage will finish regrowing within three weeks. Before that, you can clean up the base of the plant.