I have a bed behind my house that has numerous Cardinal Flowers in it.
It is perfect there, the deer don't touch this plant and the bed stays
very wet (it is where the lot was cut into a steep hillside to build
the house, so there is a lot of seepage), so they thrive. The only
problem is that the plants get very tall, a little out of whack for
that bed, and end up falling over (still blooming) and cover a walkway
and generally don't look very good.

I wondered if I can trim these back in mid-summer, before they bloom,
to reduce the height of the plant but not impede them from still
blooming like mad. And if so, when??? I tried to cut several back
this year, but I did it too late (after many had started blooming) and
they ended up just cut off stalks with no blooms. I'd love to have
these be 2-3 foot high blooming plants rather than 4-5 footers that
tend to flop over.

Thanks.

andyd