Deadheading

Hello. I wonder if you could give me some general advice on deadheading. I have a couple of Geums. I dead he’d them each day and they were very floriferous earlier this year but have gradually got more and more leggy and are now just stalks although there looks like some tiny buds might be forming. It says that it will flower Al summer but looks to be over. Should the stalks be cut down to the plant to encourage new growth or should I just wait and it will form new buds. I am a bit confused with dead heading as to how much to cut off with my
Leucanthemum Too

 

Hi,

Not too sure about the weak stalks and tiny buds, could it be lack or water in the hot weather or lack of feeding ?

Deadheading is a must for any plant for as soon as the flower head sets seeds the plant assumes its done its job and stops producing more flowers or even dies.

Depending on the plant, you can just remove the odd faded flower and its seed head from a cluster of flowers and remove the stalk when all flowers are over.

Removing those weak looking new stems is not a bad idea, but then give it a good watering and feed to promote better flowers, use a high Potash feed like Tomato feed (any brand) which encourages more flowers and fruits.

 

Thank you. I do water everything every night and so, I don’t think it’s water. I will try the feed plan and cut back the long stalks. thank you again.

 

Hi,

For a typical border plant , not a fan of watering every day as the plants tend to create roots near the surface rather than putting down deeper ones and if you miss watering for a day or two in hot weather they can soon suffer, perhaps slowly reduce to once or twice a week if in the ground.

Have only grown Geums in semi shaded areas, seems they are not too keen on full sun as mentioned here -
https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-geums/

 

Oh crikey, ok. I will do. It is a south east facing boarder but we have lots of trees around and our house blocks the sun in the late afternoon. Although it gets the hottest of the sun it’s only for about 6 hours. thank you again!

 

Hi,

Don't worry too much, as long as they are not in full sun all day, they are tough plants.
Those fact sheets in GW are good but often quoting the ideal conditions which many of us cannot achive but still get good results.

 

Thank you. It’s a south east facing boarder but our garden is surrounded by trees and the house is L shaped so it doesn’t get the sun until about 8:00 at this time of year and looses it late afternoon but our soil is on chalk once you dig down anout 9” and so is really dry. I’ve put soil conditioner in it and my mulched in the winter but it is a bit tricky I think! Probably will just have to be patient and experiment.

 

I'd go with cutting the flowering stalks down to the base of the plant. Never watered the Geum in the garden here or tried deadheading individual flowers. Got seed from the first one I planted and out of the seeds from that got another generation that I spread all about the garden so must have 50 to 100 about the place and found just chopping down all of the flowering stalks when the flowers have faded has worked well to promote a second showing of flowers later in the year. First flush of flowers are getting a bit ragged now so might do some deadheading sometime over the next few weeks.

Happy gardening!

 

Got it. Thanks for the advice. I have now chopped it back. I can actually see two new heads appearing at the base.