Off With Their Heads: A Quick Guide to Deadheading

Garden maintenance involves so much more than making sure your plants are getting enough sunlight, water, and nutrients. It also includes paying attention to how your plants are using the resources you’ve provided. One of the simplest ways to make a significant impact on the health of your garden is to deadhead flowers.

Deadheading refers to the simple technique of removing spent or faded flowers from your plants. Removing dead, wilted blooms will not only help your garden look more attractive, but will also stimulate productivity by redirecting the plant’s energy from seed production to new growth and additional blooms.

Deadheading is an essential pruning technique for managing plant growth, health, and productivity. But there’s more to deadheading than just removing old flowers. Let’s explore the fundamentals in order to upgrade your garden to be a cut above the rest! 

Why is Deadheading important?

Promotes Continual Blooming

Removing old flowers is the catalyst that stimulates the plant to put forth additional blooms. Majority of flowering plants, including both annuals and perennials, respond to deadheading by blooming continuously throughout the growing season. Most common examples are marigolds, phlox, and lupines.

Prevents Seed Formation

Your flowers are funneling all of their energy into growing and reproducing. But if you aren’t interested in harvesting seeds or want to avoid weedy seedlings from overtaking your garden, then deadheading is a must before the seeds form and scatter.

Enhances Plant Health

By removing old blooms, the risk of diseases and pests that often target decaying plants is minimized. It also improves air circulation around the plants, which can prevent fungal infections.

Different Deadheading Techniques

Pinching

Simply using your fingers to snap off the spent flower can do the trick. This method is most suitable for plants with soft stems, such as marigolds and petunias.

Snipping

Using a pair of garden scissors or snips is more effective for plants with tougher stalks such as roses, coneflowers, or daisies. A pair of hand pruners will give a clean cut through those thicker stems whereas pinching will rip the tissue and prevent the cut from healing over.

Shearing

The quickest way to mass deadhead flowering shrubs such as spirea is to use gardening shears. As a rule-of-thumb, use shears to trim back the entire plant by about a third, removing all the flowers in one go and promoting a flush of new growth and blooms. 

Making The Cut

When to Deadhead

Your plants will tell you when it is time to deadhead. Look for blooms that are faded or darkening. This indicates that the flowers are about to go to seed and, unless you are looking to harvest the seeds for cultivation, the time has come to remove these flowers and save your plant’s energy.

Deadheading can be done throughout the growing season so it is important to check in on your garden regularly to keep up with the removal of spent blooms. This doesn’t have to be on a daily basis, but consistently enough to conserve the bulk of your plant’s energy and divert it to new growth and root development. 

What Plants Benefit from Deadheading

The most common flowers that benefit from being deadheaded are annuals with multiple stemming blooms. Since they won’t be coming back the following year, you can pinch off the dead blooms to keep them vibrant for as long as possible. These include marigolds, salvias, petunias, and zinnias. 

However, not all flowers consider deadheading to be beneficial for them. Many plants will continue to bloom long into the season and will drop their spent flowers naturally over time. Others are self-seeders and will spread to areas of the garden to fill in unwanted gaps. Some examples of flowers that don’t necessarily require deadheading include annual vincas, certain types of begonias, and lantanas.

For certain perennial species, there is a lot of discrepancy as to whether or not to deadhead them. Ultimately, it is up to you to consider the needs of your garden and the function it serves in your life.

Where to Cut When Deadheading

Finding the right spot to cut is crucial. You don’t want to cut too high or too low and end up losing an entire viable stalk. Examine the stem below the spent bloom and find the next node with lateral foliage. Make the cut right above this node, leaving the foliage intact.

If you are looking at a stalk with multiple spent blooms, such as hollyhock, cut the stalk all the way down to any foliage at the base. Ensure that any spent bud, bloom, or leaf is removed.

For stalks with a single spent bloom (left), find the lateral leaves at the node below the flower and make the cut above the node.

For stalks with multiple spent blooms (right), make your cut at the base above any bottom foliage.

How to Cut the Stem When Deadheading

One of the biggest mistakes most gardeners make when deadheading is forgetting to cut larger stems at a 45 -degree angle. This not only reduces the risk of damage but it also allows water from overhead precipitation to run off the stem quickly, helping to prevent bacteria and/or fungi growth on the exposed plant tissue.

By mastering these techniques and knowing when, what, and how to deadhead, you can enjoy a longer, more vibrant flowering season. Nothing is more rewarding to a gardener than watching the fruits of their labor reward them with bountiful blooms. Now, off with their heads!