New to gardening - deadheading?

Hi all,

I’m new to gardening and growing. I planted some geraniums, daisies and violas a few months ago in pots and they’ve been doing great.

However, in terms of dead heading the geraniums, I understand ‘snapping’ them off at the stem base when the head goes totally, but on mine some of the ‘bits’ die, but others are blooming so don’t really want to take the whole head. Or should I? Images below:


You can see that bits are gone here, whereas there are new buds coming. Do I need to go in and trim all these bits out individually?


Also my daises and violas were doing great, but lately they seem to be dying in batches:

Deadheading here would be basically killing the entire plant. Has its time come and that's the end for this batch - if so, what do I do now? Dig them up and compost them?

Thanks! No information is too obvious, I know literally nothing.

 

The geraniums you can cut the old stems right back and then the plant will hopefully send up new flower shoots. Don't know about violas...I think once they have flowered you leave them to seed and then you will get more next year. Don't give up on them yet there is still life in the plants.

 

I read recently (I think it was in a book about container gardening) that you can use nail scissors to snip out individual flowers on geraniums (I assume that you mean pelargoniums). Bit finicky for me I admit!

 

With pelargoniums it makes sense to remove the whole head, it will make it flower more eventually. A partially passed it flower head looks horrible and cutting individual blooms is such a waste of time and effort. Be bold

 

Oooh @amancalledgeorge, and here was me thinking everyone else was out there with the nail scissors!

 

Thanks for this - I was wondering if it's worth doing that and it feels a shame when it's still blooming but you're right, it's a lot of effort and if it's ok to do, I'll do that! That white one in the picture looks awful.


Now.... just got to work out the daises/violas

 

Violas will keep flowering for months if you deadhead them

 

Wow that’s going to take some time but worth it will get on it tomorrow thanks

 

I don't deadhead violas, too much hassle. A lot of mine are still flowering but I have pulled up the tatty ones and replaced them with summer bedding. When the weather is hot they don't last so long.

 

I have found that once the foliage of the violas starts to darken they’re on their way out. I’d remove those but deadhead any of the green leaved ones to encourage more flowering. I wondered whether your container has drainage holes. Pelargoniums prefer quite dry soil and will start to drop flowers if it’s too wet.

 

I deadhead violas for a while when the odd flower starts to wither, but when a lot of the flowers go around the same time I usually yank the plant out and replace with something else. That’s a useful tip @Plantminded about seeing them darkening, I haven’t really equated that with being time to remove, but I will now! I cut the flower head and stem off pelargoniums when they start to look a bit past it.

 

Meaning to be constructive not critical, guided by the foliage colour ,your plants look to have exhausted the fertility in the pot compost. Would suggest a liquid feed, of Westland Boost or Miracle Gro while watering will maximise the future blooms.

 

Thanks, I will give them some feed. They have got drainage holes in all the pots (the big ones seem to be leaking compost a bit).

 

I'd agree with the soil mix probably being exhausted @MattKB . Many of these plants will use up nutrients quickly, especially by this time of year if planted in spring, and when they're tightly packed into a small container. It's why a slow release product added when planting can make it easier to maintain them, but you can feed as already described.
Violas don't tend to like the same conditions as pelargoniums though, so it might be better to grow them separately if you have those in future. They're good for shadier, damper conditions, so it can also be harder to keep them happy in pots/containers.

What kind of daisies have you got? Are they in with all these other plants too?

 

Not sure what type of daisies, I just bought some plug plants from Homebase - daisies and violas.

Thanks for the tip of growing them separately

I’ve fed them all and will see what happens.
I put some bark chip over the top of the compost they are potted in, presumably they’ll need binning at some point?