What gardener can resist a gentle stroll on a warm summer’s evening, armed with secateurs and an inviting glass of wine, snipping off spent blooms to show off the fresh burgeoning ones.
Deadheading is very satisfying. It can sometimes stimulate a fresh flush of flowers and always improves appearance. Fading, spent flowers look messy and mar the effect of their fresh successors.
I wouldn’t want the gorgeous lemony flowers of my Alchymist rose to be ruined by a neighbour’s fading creamy petals let alone solid brown lump of dead petals. This soggy mess can so easily rot newly forming buds.
You owe it to yourselves and your favourite plants to keep them clean and healthy. Like pruning, it’s so absorbing and rewarding that you’re released from all your daily worries. Deadheading is good for your mental health.
It’s also often claimed that when tidying plants by removing tired old blooms you’re encouraging a flush of new ones. This may not always happen. Roses, for example, initiate the formation of buds in late autumn and early winter, with more potential buds started at that stage than may actually develop.
The spring’s longer days and higher temperatures enable bud growth, leading to single or multiple flushes during summer and autumn. Some research has shown that if the first flush of these flowers can produce seed, other potential ones don’t get going. But if a flower is removed earlier than this, another may be triggered by its gibberellin hormones into growing.
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Whether this happens depends on the species or cultivar. With species roses and some climbers, the gibberellin cues won’t be triggered, so you only get one flush. But others, such as hybrid teas do produce extra blooms. So, depending on your rose species or cultivar, deadheading may give you extra flowers.
Some perennials, like hardy geraniums, can be cut back to promote a second flush of blooms. But the timing of the first flowering, the weather we have in late July and August and where you live can determine whether you’ll get a second good flush or not. Southern England’s longer sunnier days are quite different to this country.
It is suggested that regular deadheading encourages this second flush more quickly, but this may not always apply. Some recent American research into one rose species found the second flowering always occurred after the same length of time, whether or not the plants were deadheaded.
We all enjoy a second flush of flowers as a way of expending the flowering season. But many of our plants have much more to offer, not least attractive seed heads. Take Eryngiums, those statuesque thistle-like features in a bed, with a height and spread of nearly a metre. They are elegantly, artistically shaped, with fine, fiercely-pronged blue-grey talons protecting their prominent centre. Or Astrantia’s fine large seed heads with a burgeoning mass of dried star shaped florets.
And you may well want to save yourself the trouble of sowing and planting next year by allowing the seed on this year’s plants to ripen and fall naturally. Poppies and borage are good candidates as are biennials, like foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea.
Plant of the week
Lavandula angustifolia ‘Forever Blue’ is a variety of lavender with particularly deep blue flowers and a strong scent. It can repeat flower and is suitable for cutting and drying.
Grow in well drained soil in a sunny spot; lacking that grow in a large pot and add grit to the compost. Water sparingly. In winter move out of the path of cold winds.
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