What is deadheading?
Deadheading is a simple garden task that will keep your blooming plants happier and healthier. It refers to removing dead flowers, either by pinching with the fingers or by trimming back with scissors or pruners. The process of deadheading allows plants to put energy towards creating more blooms, rather than seeds. Deadheading your plants regularly will extend their blooming season and may help to prevent infestation and disease. It will also greatly improve the appearance of your garden. Deadheading is performed differently depending on the type of plant. For foliage with tiny clusters of flowers, it is easiest to wait for the entire cluster to die. Cut the stem cleanly about one-quarter of an inch (6.4 mm) above the next group of leaves or the next cluster. Plants that generate one flower per stem, like daisies and marigolds, can be kept looking healthy by deadheading at the base of the stem. If the plant generates several flowers to a stem that bloom at different times, trim off eac
Deadheading is the practice of removing fading flowers. Why deadhead annuals? All plants want to survive. Since annuals only live one year, they survive by producing flowers, which then produce seeds, which keeps the species going. Theyll put all their energy into trying to get that seed to mature. Stop this process by cutting off the fading flower heads. Since youve stopped the seed-maturing process, the plant will respond by producing more flowers. Pansies, for example, will last much longer into the heat of summer if you deadhead them regularly. Why deadhead perennials? Okay, thats why we deadhead annuals. But why should you deadhead perennials? Perennials also try to survive by producing more seeds. But since they come back next year anyway, we really dont need them to produce seeds. However, deadheading perennials will occasionally produce more flowers in the same season. Perennials such as Phlox, delphiniums, foxglove, gaillardia and daisies will usually produce more flowers afte
Yes, Jerry Garcia is dead and gone. So what is all of this talk about deadheading. Deadheading is the removal of the dead flower heads from your rose bushes in order to get them to bloom more. The theory is that when you remove the bloom before the plant is able to form seed pods (rose hips), the plant will want to put out more blooms in its drive to reproduce. Believe it or not, this actually works, and works well. Most modern roses will rebloom about 6 weeks after you remove the old dead blooms. Some will rebloom in as few as 4 weeks, and some take up to 10 weeks to rebloom, but rebloom they will. Most roses produce blooms on the terminal growth of new branches. The new growth will occur at the first bud below where you cut off the bloom.
