Is it true that pinching the dead flowers off my marigolds will make them last longer?
Although deadheading sounds like something Jerry Garcia might’ve come up with, it’s an age-old gardening practice that allows you get the biggest bang out of the flowers you’ve put so much time and effort into cultivating.
Deadheading is the practice of removing spent flowers before they begin the process of forming seeds. This throws a monkey-wrench into the natural order of things and forces plants to concentrate on producing additional flowers when they would otherwise be putting their energy into creating the next generation. As a result, the flowering season is extended and the overall appearance of your garden is improved, both because of the additional flowers these plants will now be sporting and because when plants set seeds, they tend to take on a ravaged appearance only their mothers could love. Some plants even form side-shoots as a result of being pinched back, resulting in more robust plants and more opportunities for flowers to form.
Although deadheading is often associated with annuals, the majority of perennials also benefit from the practice. Some, including delphiniums, lupines, and day lilies, have been known to sport a second flush of flowers later in the season if their flowering stalks have been cut back before seed-heads have formed.
Most spent flower heads can easily be removed by pinching them between your thumb and forefinger. Plants with tougher flower stalks will need to be clipped back either with scissors or a pair of pruners. I once had a friend who used to cut back his bed of petunias with a lawnmower midway through each gardening season. It wasn't very glamourous and it's definitely not recommended in gardening books, but it got the job done and a few weeks later those petunias were blooming like crazy.
Now, there are cases where you don't want to deadhead your flowers. The obvious exceptions are if you are growing your flowers for seed or if a flower's seedheads are particularly attractive. More than one gardener has been seduced into growing Honesty plant because of its unique papery, sliver-dollar like seed pods, only to discover in successive years that neither their garden nor their neighbors’ will ever be rid of these impressively fertile plants.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me at vanessa@gardenmuse.ca.
Originally published in the Creston Valley Advance on July 5, 2007.
