If monkshood is sown in a suitable location in the garden, it will thrive without any extensive care. Apart from the occasional application of some irrigation water and fertilizer during the flowering period, pruning the monkshood does some work.

Monkshood is also good as a cut flower in the vase

Wear gloves for all maintenance activities

Monkshood is one of the few plants that is not only toxic to the body when it is ingested orally. Therefore, you should not only wear gardening gloves as a precaution when sowing the poisonous seeds, but also when removing wilted flowers and cutting back the stems. Symptoms of poisoning such as numbness and an unpleasant burning sensation can also occur on uninjured skin. In order to avoid accidental touching, the monkshood, which grows very tall anyway, is usually planted in the middle of perennial beds.

The right pruning for monkshood

Monkshood is a perennial plant that survives the winter in the ground. A pruning in the sense of a size limit is therefore not necessary with monkshood, since all above-ground parts of the plant die off towards the end of the vegetation period anyway. Some gardeners only cut monkshood back to ground level in spring, but the withered stems of the plant do not look particularly attractive. Therefore, the main time for pruning is more in October, when all the flowers have withered. When pruning monkshood, keep the following things in mind:

  • wear gardening gloves for safety reasons
  • work with clean and sharp garden tools
  • the direct cutting out of wilted flowers prevents the formation of the particularly poisonous seeds
  • careful disposal of the cut material away from children and pets

Rejuvenate the plants by division

If the individual monkshood clumps in the garden are too large for you, you can dig them up in the spring when sprouting begins and divide them with a sharp spade. Wear gloves, too, as the roots of the plant are poisonous. A division every four to five years is also recommended to regularly rejuvenate the plants. If necessary, a division in autumn or in frost-free weather is generally possible between October and March.

tips

If you want to cut off individual aconite inflorescences as cut flowers for the vase, then you should not wait until all the individual flowers have fully blossomed. A cut with about 30% of the individual flowers open will give you the best shelf life in the vase.

Category:

Vegetable garden