Pinching out??

Need some advice, being a bit clueless.:cnfs:

I know that some young plants (e.g. fuschias, petunias) need the growing tip pinching out -- it delays flowering but gives you a better shaped plant and more flowers in the long run. OK. What I want to know is---

Does this apply to all plants? If not, how do you know what to pinch out and what to leave grow? I don't want to break off the business end & have the plant die.

 

Nope, doesn't apply to all plants. I suppose if you don't know its best to ask, but basically if you want a bushy plant, and the plant doesn't tend to become bushy naturally,then you pinch it out.

Aubergine would be a good example. The pinching out of Aubergines gets debated up & down the country! See this thread for example

 

Hi Upcountry Girl - There are several kinds of pinching out.

Fruit and veg I don't grow fruit or veg but I understand that the purpose of pinching out is not for the shape of the plant itself but to control the number and size of produce.

Flowers In this case you are pinching leaf buds at an early stage to control the shape of the plant. What you pinch out is so small that I doubt that it would affect the flowering at all. If you pinch out the main tip it encourages side shoots to grow. As Kristen said, not all plants need it - some grow bushy naturally. However I don't think that it can do any harm. If you are pinching out flower buds you are probably doing it at too late a stage.

The Chelsea chop This is a drastic pinching out proces. It is well known for Sedums, but can be done for a lot of different plants. In this case you cut the entire plant down by one third to one half. For Sedums you do this around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show (hence the name), ie end of May. The reason for this is to make the plants shorter and bushier, so that they don't flop over. Tracy DiSabato-Aust in America has written an entire book on this aspect. This obviously will delay flowering, but not as much as you might think. It may only be two weeks.

Showing You pinch out flower buds when you want to control the quantity and timing of the flower display. When you see wonderful displays at flower shows, four or five weeks before the exhibitor would have removed every flower bud from the plants to ensure that they all regrew and displayed together at exactly the right time. To get the right shape to the plant they would have piched out leaf buds at a much earlier stage.

Cuttings When you take cuttings you pinch out any flower buds so as to ensure that the energy goes into making roots and not flowers.

In general, pinching out might be unneccessary for some plants but can't really do any harm. The only time when you really must not do it are when there are no growing points below, ie when seedlings are very small. Also you can't pinch out bulbs. What looks like the stem of a tulip is not really a stem in the normal sense with nodes (where you get leaves and side shoots) but is part of the flower. There will be a few other plants with a single growing plant. I suspect that things like bamboo don't like it. In fact I would be wary of any monocots (plants are either dicots or monocots - have a Google). The other time is when you dramatically affect the appearance of the plant. Pinching out a Sunflower will change its character completely!

 

Ahhhh .... light begins to dawn. Thanks, Kristen and Pete.

So I have some dahlias growning from seed, and some bell peppers - both probably dicots, and both would perhaps benefit from pinching out? But better not do it to the sweetcorn.

 

Only gown Dahlias from tubers, but don't remember pinching them out.

For my Peppers it depends ... they have always bushed up enough by themselves so I have left them, but if they don't I'll pinch them out. Pinching them out will delay the arrival of the first fruits ...

 

Dahlias tend to bush out by themselves - so its not really necessary to pinch out. I have never grown maize, but it is a monocot - so I would not be inclined to pinch out. The general rule is that if a plant has natural growing side shoots lower down, pinching out shouldn't harm the plant itself (as opposed to its fruiting habit). But if there are no side shoots then don't.