As our hot summer slowly eases into a cooler fall, we can revive many of our flowering plants now by simply deadheading them. Deadheading means removing the dead flowers from your perennials and annuals which encourages them to continue to flower or even return to bloom. Flowers should be pinched off or trimmed at the stem as soon as they fade. The idea behind the removal of the spent flowers is to trick the plant into thinking that it has not completed its cycle of flower to pollination to seed and done. Key reasons to deadhead include:
• It often makes your plants bloom longer because removing spent flowers keeps your plants from wasting their energy producing seeds. After the main stems have finished blooming, if you cut them quite low, many plants will send up a second smaller batch of flowers.
• It keeps some perennials that are notorious for reseeding from spreading. If you don’t try to prevent these new seedlings, they could possibly crowd out other plants.
• It improves the health and appearance of plants by channeling the plant’s resources away from seed production and into vegetative growth.
How to deadhead depends on the flower type. Plants, like daylilies that have lots of flowers on one stem just need their individual flowers plucked as they fade. After all the flowers are off the daylily stem, cut the stem off at the base. You can also remove branches or clusters of flowers, like asters, leaving buds or branches below the cut to send out more blooms. Shasta daisies and many other perennials produce one flower per stem. Cut that stem to the ground after it blooms and then when it has finished blooming for the season, cut back all of the stems to within 4-5 inches of the plant base. Some plants like coreopsis produce so many flowers over the entire plant that removing them individually is too time consuming. It is easier and just as effective to shear the entire plant within a few inches of the ground after the main flush of flowers is finished. There are some perennials where the seed heads are attractive and can provide food for birds such as purple coneflower and sedum that you may want to leave them. Make sure that before the early frosts, you stop deadheading to allow the plant to biologically prepare for winter. For more deadheading info refer to: https://ucanr.edu/blog/ucce-master-gardeners-san-bernardino-county-blogs/article/deadheading-flowers-gail-nieto.
SAVE THE DATE — Saturday, October 24 — 3 Sisters Garden Fall Festival 10 a.m.-2 p.m. FREE admission, large fall plant sale and fun activities for the whole family. Located behind Madera Community College, 30277 Ave. 12, Madera.
Happy deadheading!