Keep your summer garden attractive and blooming into fall by regularly deadheading! What is deadheading? When and why is it necessary? The NCSU Extension Gardener Handbook explains deadheading as follows:
Deadhead fading blossoms to encourage rebloom and keep garden tidy.
Deadheading is the removal of dead or faded flowers and seed pods. When annuals and perennials expend energy to produce seeds after the flower fades, flower production often decreases. To maintain vigorous growth and assure neatness, remove spent flowers and seed pods.
Different plants; different techniques Deadheading is not a complicated gardening task, but it helps to know when to apply different techniques. In general, use your fingers to snap off the flower head, or pruners to clip off the spent blossom just above the first healthy leaves on the stem—the classic technique for marigolds and zinnias. For bushy plants that flower on tall stalks—such as rudbeckia and daisies—remove the topmost flower down to where a lateral flower comes out of the stem. As each lateral flower blooms, keep cutting the main stem back to the next leaf bud.
Pinch faded blossoms of tall, spiky flowers—such as delphiniums, cardinal flower, and gladiolas—from the bottom up. Cut the entire stalk to the ground when it is nearly barren of flowers.
Daylilies produce several flowers at the end of their stalks. Pinch off each blossom as it fades and then cut the stalk to its base within the foliage clump. Mounding plants—such as petunias, catmint, and cranesbill—may benefit from mid- to late-summer shearing to encourage new growth and a bushier appearance.
Some plants don’t need deadheading at all—think impatiens, begonias, and vinca. Their blossoms fade and drop off naturally. For plants that will not rebloom—such as peonies, astilbe, most iris, and hostas—deadheading keeps the garden looking tidy.
A wildlife-friendly, winter garden As fall approaches, consider allowing your summer flowers to go to seed. Seeds, seed pods, and hips provide birds a needed food source in winter. Perennial stalks, left standing, provide protective groundcover for wildlife and offer winter garden interest. If your garden space allows, take advantage of prolific reseeding from plants like rudbeckia, Echinacea, columbine, verbena, cosmos, and California poppies. Come summer, you will enjoy a host of blossoms from these new plant volunteers.
Fine Gardening magazine, Issue 92, “Off with Their Heads,” offers an extensive list of perennials that may rebloom after deadheading, as well as those that do not but benefit in appearance from deadheading. http://www.finegardening.com/their-heads-deadheading-perennials
Article written by Beth Leonard, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.
By April we are really ready to start getting in the garden. Nurseries will soon be well stocked and ready for your business. While plants do sell best when they’re in bloom, when it comes to annual flowers it’s better to look for those that are compact and have only a few, if any, flowers on them. Let the tall, lanky ones with lots of flowers go. For the best selection you might consider buying early and holding the plants for a few weeks. If needed move them to larger pots and move tender plants inside only if a freeze threatens.
Does anyone in the neighborhood have an old-time lawn roller? With all the mole depredation of our lawns, a light pass with a roller before you mow might save some of the higher mole tunnels from being scalped. Some riding mowers have a roller attachment that could do the same thing.
Most woody weeds are better controlled with late summer or fall applications of glyphosate (Roundup). However, research has shown that for English ivy a spring application when the ivy has 2 to 4 new leaves provides better long term control than summer or fall treatments.
Refresh mulches to prevent summer annual weeds from germinating. But, not too much! Woody landscape beds should have no more than 4 inches of mulch, including the old and the new. So, when you add new mulch to existing beds, only replenish what has been lost since last year. And don’t pile much against the trunks as the retained moisture can cause crown rot . You want to be able to see the root flare, the point near ground level where the trucks curves outward.
Strawberries can be planted now for next year’s crop but remove any flowers that develop. Check the established bed for weeds and add mulch if needed. If you haven’t finished pruning in the home orchard, better to do it now than let a whole year go by.
This was written by Extension Master Gardener Glenn Palmer in 2008 and originally published in the Asheville Citizen Times.
Strawberries can be planted now for next year’s crop but remove any flowers that develop. Check the established bed for weeds and add mulch if needed. If you haven’t finished pruning in the home orchard, better to do it now than let a whole year go by.