Deadheading- a joyous or tedious task?

Discuss.

Quite a few of my roses are repeat flowering so its an essential task, but my goodness its dull, especially tidying up cluster flowered varieties.

Then there is the scrabbling about in the border to pick up dropped heads without trashing any other plants.

 

Whether you find it joyous or tedious is down to how you view your garden - a joyous place or a tedious chore.

I don't have a problem dead heading the Roses - every little snip is a new Rose. Bring them on.

 

Im not sure that's true for me Alice. My garden certainly isnt a chore!

Everyone has their favourite tasks and ones they would gladly pay another to do. Deadheading stands out for me because I dont enjoy it. Dead rose heads are so unattractive, so out of tune with their former beauty.

Rose wine sounds interesting Woo! I made some hedgerow vodka and brandy a few years ago with my mum. The blackberry brandy was really yum- Ive not really been around to collect any for the last couple of years, but I intend to make some more this autumn!

 

Shiney, do rose petals in salads taste rather perfumey au naturale?
The only thing Ive sprayed is woo's vinegar solution to ward off black spot. So they should be safe to eat, but Im still hesitating!


Woo- your post reminded me about flavoured drinks and Ive just posted a recipe for flavoured vodkas in the recipe forum! There are some nice grown up flavours there, and not just my ASBO flavoured favourites! :D

 

Well I did it!

I can report that golden and white petals taste marginally better than pink and red bitter perfumey ones.

'better' is still relative of course!

Ive also done a very big deadheading job for a couple of my larger climbers and I have the scratches and insect bites to prove it.

Ive spotted gnarled, unproductive branches on the mainframe that Im going to take out once autumn arrives.

 

MASSIVE BUMP

Its deadheading time. Yay.

Question about cluster flowered roses. Do you take off the individual flowers as they go over, or wait to take off the entire thing?

 

There was discussion on here a couple of years ago - someone (perhaps it was WOO?) had some results from a trial that suggested that just snapping the old flowers off was better.

Having not tried that before I did it for a season and thought it was a disaster. Floppy-headed roses, poor second crop, poor shape ...

So I have reverted to snapping off heads when passing them, and then less frequently going round with the secateurs for a light prune.

 

Don't think I remembered it exactly ... there's age for you! Here's the post:

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/roses/8986-dead-heading.html