A daft question about dead-heading

Hi all

I'm going to have to show my total lack of experience now by asking this, but how do you tell if a flower head is just coming or has been and gone?

Obviously with some flowers it is quite clear, as the petals stay on but shrivel up, but on some, for example Osteopermums, it doesn't seem quite so obvious to me at least.

Any clues?

 

I always stick by the same rule .... if it doesnt look good, it aint staying :hehe:

Anything that looks past its best, I cut/pull off as soon as I notice it.

If in doubt you could always watch it for a day or so as anything new will start to open out whereas spent blooms will get worse looking.

 

When the osteo flower is over it loses its petals and you are left with a flat ended seed case, that's when I dead head it.

 

Thanks for that. I suspect I've chopped off a few that were still to come then, as I could see closed buds with a few petals sticking out, but they looked markedly different to the lush green buds that are obviously still to come.