Dead Heading advice please!

Hi everyone,

I'm ok dead heading things like marigolds, nasturtiums etc but there are a few plants growing and I'm not sure how to go about dead heading them:

1. Echium Russicum......this is lovely. Tall spikes of red flowers. Do I just leave this now? Lots of the little red flowers have died off and it doesn't appear to be doing anything else.

2. California Poppy....if I dead head these will they keep flowering? I'm not sure if they do?

3. Snapdragons.....do i just take the dead flower off the main stem?

4. Perennial wallflower "Bowles Mauve"......do I just remove the tiny little flowers off the long stems or do I wait until all the flowers have died on each stem and then cut these long stems back so it produces more long stems??

Thankyou

 

Hi
The purpose of dead heading is to stop the plant .... Whatever variety.... Of reproducing itself by forming seeds........by removing the flower heads this will encourage more flowers to appear and lengthen the flowering period..............hope this helps... Gardening is 98% common sense and 1% skill ........ Also 1% trial and error by learning from mistakes

 

Sorry, can't agree

I've found over the years that common sense is often incorrect when it comes to looking after plants. Chopping great chunks off to make a plant healthier? Letting them get a bit parched from time to time to encourage them to build bigger root networks to find water? Completely ignoring the labels added by garden centres that experience tells me are almost always totally incorrect.

I'd swap one of your 1%s for the 98%, to read as follows:

"Gardening is 1% common sense and 1% skill ........ Also 98% trial and error by learning from mistakes"

 

Nor can I agree with you my friend.... People are scared to try.... Use your common sense.... If you make a mistake .... Learn from it
If you don't try you will never learn
never suggested chopping big chunks ...but would suggest if something is to big...you prune or in the wrong place it becomes a weed
Think we may agree to disagree

 

This is my point. To someone who has never tried any form of gardening, the idea of deliberately chopping bits off a plant to make it more healthy must surel be counterintuitive. If you had a child or a pet that wasn't doing too well, you wouldn't address the problem by cutting bits off, yet it works for plants. How can that be common sense? We learn that through experience.

Better example. A tree or shrub is growing too vigorously on one side, so we spend more time pruning the opposite side. That's not common sense, that's learned through experience.

Gardening expertise comes from experience, not common sense. That's why its much more common to find gardening expertise in older folk. They've had more years to learn and have made more mistakes to learn from.

 

What age do you determine older folk to be ?

 

Have you seen the post by al n. it helps prove my point ... Experience wasn't needed ....... Being 4 years old didn't make any difference ...... Planting them roots down and leaves upwards was common sense.."..... Trying was the best bit ...and if it had all gone wrong ....would of tried again

 

Older folk are older than younger folk. I'm not going to get drawn into petty games of splitting hairs. Its quite clear that my point is about experience and not any specific age.

 

Well my experience in the garden industry was started at the age of 13.... Working every weekend and during the summer holidays..... College uni and then youngest garden centre manager at the age of 21.


My point is
Some people it comes naturally some people it dosnt
Tbh I've never considered myself as a gardener .........

 

With respect Doug, working with plants and running Garden Centres doesn't make an experienced gardener. I worked in a Nursery for a time and see it as a production line, nothing more, I have learnt from my years of trial and error from my gardens past and present on all types of soil and weather conditions as have many other members of GC.

 

Was just good to hear other people's opinions......and to be able to have a debate without any animosity ............

 

Back to the original post... I tend not to deadhead because the seedpods after the flowers often are very attractive.

OK, the plant is spending energy in producing often useless seeds, and I may be losing a second flush of flowers. However, plants gone to seed are often pretty, and provide interest to see how the plants actually behave if left alone, not just bred for the flowers.

The prettiest seedpods I have at the moment are from Fritillarias- they are modest and great plants with lovely flowers, but the seedpods provide another 3 months of interest. First, the erect pods, and now the flower- like beige open pods rising above my chives.

It's a choice, plus experience. I deadhead anything that doesn't give me anything if I let them go through their natural cycle, most often bedding plants. Or, if I do want to hope for another flush of flowers, or if the plant needs all the energy it can conserve for the year after.

But the rest of them, interesting dry brown shapes are welcome in my garden.

The Midget also likes to collect various seeds and sow them

 

Thanks for the advice everyone.