How To Cut Chives From Garden

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Chives are common herbs that grow beautiful purple flowers in early summer. Just like most plants, chives will benefit from regular pruning to keep them growing their best. It's also important to deadhead chives after they bloom, or they'll spread all over your garden. The good news is that pruning and deadheading chives are both very easy. Learn when to trim chive plants and remove the flowers, different tools and techniques to use, and exactly how to cut back chives.

Pruning chives and deadheading the flowers are both very easy. In this post, I'll tell you when to cut back chive plants and deadhead the flowers, discuss different tools and techniques to use, and then show you exactly how to trim chives, step-by-step.

How To Prune Chives & Deadhead The Flowers

Chives are common herbs that grow beautiful little purple flowers in early summer. Just like most plants, chives will benefit from regular pruning to keep them looking nice, and growing their best.

It's also important to deadhead chives after they bloom, or they will spread all over your garden. The good news is that both are very easy. But it is important to learn how to trim chives to make sure you get the timing right.

Here's what you'll find in this step by step guide…

Why Should You Trim Chives?

Pruning isn't required in order to grow and harvest tons of fresh chives. But, it is very beneficial to the plant.

So it's a good idea to get into the habit of trimming chives regularly. Here are a few reason why it's important to prune chives…

Promotes new growth – Trimming back chives will help to promote new growth on the plant. And the tender new growth is the stuff that tastes the best.

Keeps the plant looking nice – If you don't prune chives, the plant can become overgrown, woody, and flop to the ground. Also, cutting chives back in the fall will keep your garden looking tidy.

Prevents chives from spreading – Chives are aggressive reseeders. If you don't remove the flowers before they set seed, you will find tiny chive plants growing all around your garden.

Related Post: How To Collect Chive Seeds From Your Garden

Chives blooming in my garden

Techniques For Trimming Chives

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish by pruning chives, there are three methods you can use. You could deadhead the flowers, cut back chives after flowering, or cut the plant all the way back to the ground.

Method 1: Deadheading chives – The term deadheading simply means removing the flowers after they are done blooming. Deadheading chives keeps the plant looking nice, and prevents them from spreading.

Method 2: Prune chives after blooming – Cutting back chives after flowering will rejuvenate the plant, and encourage fresh new growth. Once the flowers start to fade, prune chives down half way to remove all the spent flowers.

Method 3: Cut chives back to the ground – You can cut chives back to the ground at any time, and they will grow back. Use this method either in late fall once the plant goes dormant, or to revitalize overgrown chives anytime.

Chive flowers starting to fade

When To Prune Chives

When it comes to both pruning and deadheading chives, it's important to get the timing right. But don't worry, chives are very forgiving. So, you don't have to worry too much about it. Here's how to know when to trim chives…

When to cut back chives – Chives are extremely cold hardy, and will start growing in late winter or early spring. So, it's best to cut them down to the ground in late fall. You can also cut them back again after they're done blooming to promote growth.

When to deadhead chives – You can start deadheading chives as soon as the flowers begin to fade in early summer. Once the flowers turn brown, the seeds will be viable. So, don't wait too long to deadhead them, or the seeds will start to scatter.

Related Post: Freezing Fresh Chives The Right Way

Overgrown chives after flowering

Tools For Pruning Chives

The good news is that it's super easy to prune chives, so you don't need to worry about being precise. When cutting chives back to the ground, it's easiest to use hedge shears or an electric hedge trimmer.

If only you want to remove the flower stalks, then you can use precision pruners or a sharp pair of pruning shears. Otherwise, if you just want to deadhead chive flowers, then you can easily pop them off with your hands – no tools required.

Before you start cutting, be sure your tools are sharpened and cleaned. Chives have very thin foliage and flower stalks, and dull tools may not cut through them very easily. Keeping your pruning tools clean will prevent the spread of diseases.

How To Prune Chives

Like I mentioned above, you don't have to be precise when pruning chives. The plants are very forgiving, and you can't kill it by over pruning. In fact, they grow best when they get a regular hard pruning.

The easiest way to trim chives is to give the whole plant a haircut. You can prune chives for shape if you prefer to keep things tidy. Otherwise, just go for it.

To make fast work of pruning chives, use hedge trimming shears to give them a quick trim. When I'm cutting mine down to the ground, I use my electric hedge trimmer to get it done even faster.

Cutting back chives after flowering

How To Deadhead Chives

You don't have to worry about being precise about cutting off the flowers either. There are really only two ways to deadhead chives. You could cut back the flower stalks, or you can just remove the blooms. Here's how to deadhead chives…

Option 1: Cutting back chive flower stems – The flower stalks will turn brown and woody after the plant is done blooming. Trimming chives keeps the plant looking nice, and removes the woody stems to you don't accidentally harvest them – yuck! To remove them, simply cut each stem all the way down to the base of the plant.

Option 2: Deadheading chive flowers – It's perfectly fine to just remove the flowers, and leave the stems. It's not going to harm the plant in any way. To deadhead chives, simply pop the flowers off using your hands. Or use precision pruning snips to cut them off.

Whichever deadheading method you choose to use, be sure to throw the flowers into the garbage and not the compost bin. Otherwise you could have chives growing everywhere.

Related Post: How To Harvest Chives & When To Pick Them

Deadheading chive flowers

Pruning chives is easy, and doesn't take much time. Whether cutting back the plant, trimming them for shape, or simply deadheading chives, choose the method that works best for you. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to grow the best looking chives in town!

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