tall garden phlox question
It's been a long, hot, dry summer. My tall phlox (I have LOTS) are pretty much done blooming and what's worse is that that they all are infested with spider mites.
If I cut them down now, and put all the clippings out in the trash, would it be bad for the plants? I think that they will not resprout until spring, even if I did water and feed them. My guess is that they only send up new shoots in spring.
Related question: do you know of any systemic miticides that would work? In addition to the mites being all over the phlox, they seem to have attacked the creeping charlie (ground ivy?) weeds in my lawn. Now, I really don't care about the weeds being harmed. But I do worry that all those weeds are a reservoir for the mites.
Any ideas?