Chives

[ksia]

My row of lovely flowering chives is now looking a bit tired and faded. If I cut the flowers off will they grow new ones again this season?
I think I read somewhere the taste is better if you don't let them flower but I adore these flowers and you get to use the chive as well!
Thanks
Karen

[ksia]

[saddad]

They may flower again, if we have a couple of wet weeks to make good growth and then a hot dry spell to make them think it is time to flower but it is not likely.... I leave mine to flower, they are good in salads as well but can be rather strong!
;D

[valmarg]

After the first flush, and when the chive plants flower, I cut them back virtually to ground level, and they do grow back again.

Every year I intend to cut the new growth, snip it into a container and freeze it.  They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions - it's probably why I have no frozen chives in the freezer!!

valmarg

[tim]

To me, flowers mean that plant is a 'goner'.

When the chives are 6-8" high, I cut 1/3 to the ground. A week or two later. I cut down another 1/3. These will come on in succession.

[supersprout]

erm, all the chive plants you sent me produced lovely flower buds tim - but I did chop them down :o

[tim]

ah, but you only had 2 plants. Difficult to do that in thirds?

I don't really mean goner - just that they are soon going to be past their best, & it's a B nuisance having to extract all the tough flowering stems from the bunch you cut.

This is the first third - V badly hacked down, as you can see!!

[supersprout]

they must have multiplied in the post tim, because three arrived woo hoo!
so I can be successful with succession after all ;D
glad you didn't mean real goner :-[ ::) :)

[saddad]

Only two or three with flowers will mean hundreds of new plants later on!
;D

[antipodes]

I have brought this topic back because it seems timely! I have a most lovely flowering chive in my lot! The purple flowers are so beautiful!
I have snipped off a few leaves for seasoning but I was wondering, can you save the seed? and if so, when and how to go about it? I find chives to be a bugger to grow, these have overwintered and they are gorgeous. I have tried in pots and they are always spindly and weak.

[Hyacinth]

They're so easy to propagate by division (and benefit from it too).....why bother with growing from seed?

I cut alternate plants in my rows back to soil level, so always have pretty plants and new growth - and youll be surprised at how quickly they do grow. Chives are really hardy in my experience.

[antipodes]

oh you can divide them? I didn't know that? I had 2 clumps growing wild in the lot, one i lifted and put elsewhere, should I have pulled it into several pieces? Is that what you mean by division?

[Hyacinth]

Exactly! If you leave the plants, in time they form clumps.....still healthy but become overcrowded, so about every 3rd year I dig a clump up and make about 3 more plants. The seedheads, as previously mentioned, seem to just germinate & grow and grow, as Dad has said.

I find hedges of them useful around my carrots btw.

[petengade]

My wife picks the flowers before they open with 9 inches of stalk and makes a Thai chicken liver stir fry with them, when I get a clump I divide it and have it beside the garden path and its a long path, it can withstand a lot of chopping back and seems  the better for it.