Back in June, I pinched back one of my Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’ as a pruning experiment. You can read the original post here.
I then updated the results in early September which you can also read here.
I’m here today to state that I will, without a doubt, be pinching back all of my Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’ in June next year. The ultimate size of the plant that was cut back didn’t differ much from the unpruned plants, but the blooms on the pruned plant have persisted longer into fall and that is enough to convince me it is worth it. 
Here is a bloom on the pruned Sedum (as of today): 

And a bloom on one of the unpruned plants (as of today):

The difference may be subtle, but I’ll take any extended bloom color whenever I can get it.

Maybe I’ll do a double pinch back next year and analyze the results.

Is it June yet?

John

On a whim, I pinched back one of my three Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’ perennials back in June just to “see what happens”. How’s that for motivation?
Unlike the cultivar ‘Autumn Joy’ which almost always toppled over for me in the past, ‘Autumn Fire’ has remained upright and flourished through the summer and into the fall. But I couldn’t resist tweaking this late bloomer just for shits and giggles. 
Here are the results to date:
Here is the sedum just after being pinched back in late June:

  

And here is how one of the individual stems look today: 

As compared to one of the unpinched sedums:

As you can see, the pinched ‘Autumn Fire’ has more blooms per stem which are smaller than the unpinched sedums.

Here is a shot of the entire pinched ‘Autumn Fire’:

And a photo of an unpinched one:

Obviously, the pinched sedum is “behind” the other two in terms of bloom time and that was expected. You can see that better in the photo below (pinched sedum is at the top):

So, what does it all mean? I’m not sure.

The pinching worked as expected but truthfully, I should have either pinched them all or left them all unpinched. They would look their best and have the greatest impact while all at the same stage of blooming.

However, I think I prefer the look of more but smaller bloom heads and I like the idea of potentially extending the sedum bloom season further into the fall, so I’m leaning towards pinching all of these in unison next summer.

A final evaluation to come in the next few weeks.

Thanks for following along.

John             

I am keeping it simple today with the next installment of “Prune in June”, as we’ll take a look at Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’

Pretty nice, eh?

Please notice we are talking ‘Autumn Fire’ and not the more common ‘Autumn Joy’. After years of struggling with AJ and its tendency to sprawl when in bloom, I made the move to ‘Autumn Fire’:

To date, AF has performed up to its reputation as a better “upright” sedum than AJ. The foliage remains tighter  and seems to be a bit more robust than AJ. Of course, my AF are still relatively young so the jury may still be out.

Which brings me to current day. While Tracy DiSabato-Aust discusses how to pinch/prune ‘Autumn Joy’ in “The Well Tended Perennial Garden”, I figured I would apply that same reasoning to my ‘Autumn Fire’. Pinching, rather than cutting back, seems to be the preferred option so count me in on that choice.

Here is an AF before pinching:

And here is the same plant “post pinch”:

I have two others I decided not to touch for now (or maybe I will pinch one at a later date):

I would expect the pinched AF to produce more blooms but at a smaller size, and would also expect a more compact plant. We’ll see.

This is damn fun isn’t it?

John

Yes, the end of the gardening season is near – OK fine, I know it can extend through the winter, blah blah blah – and I’m doing my best to enjoy it while it is still here:
The blooms of Anemone ‘September Charm’ are holding on for dear life:

The sedum blooms have transformed into their coveted brick red color:

Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ is at it’s peak: 

The Acorus gramineus ‘Oborozuki’ (also known as sweet flag but wanted to get my Latin on) are at their most vivid color right now and have truly enjoyed the sick amount of rain we’ve had the past two months:

Still loving the color of Thuja (Arborvitae) ‘Rheingold’:

And loving the sight of berries left behind as the trees shed their leaves:

Enjoy your weekend
John