Get the most out of your flowers year on year, and enjoy a longer season of blooms by keeping on top of deadheading. It is a little and often job that makes a big difference. Snipping or pinching out faded flowers encourages plants to divert energy into producing fresh flushes of booms, keeping flowers coming thick and fast over a longer season, instead of running to seed. Deadheading flowers also gives your garden a tidier appearance too; if fading flowers are snipped from plants, decaying petals won't end up strewn over the ground.
The best tools for deadheading
With a sharp pair of secateurs, deadheading flowers is a breeze. Kent & Stowe's Eversharp range ensures cuts are clean, precise and healthy. A quality pair of secateurs offers comfort and ease of use, ideal for long sessions of deadheading.
With a lightweight aluminium body and tough carbon steel blades, Eversharp Garden Snips make deadheading a joy and also work a treat for cutting flowers, herbs, string and wire.
If you prefer a lighter tool our Garden Life cutting range is the perfect choice. They are designed to be compact and incredibly lightweight.
How to deadhead
Geraniums (Pelargonium)
Easy to grow, drought-tolerant and packed with Mediterranean-style blooms over a long season, geraniums are a firm favourite with UK gardeners. To keep plants flowering profusely throughout summer, regular deadheading is essential. When blooms begin to look tatty, or when petals turn brown and fall, simply twist off the spent stem and its flower. Geraniums that have been regularly deadheaded often bloom late into autumn if temperatures remain mild.
Petunias
These flowers are a summertime statement, filing hanging baskets, windowsill containers and various other pots and containers with dazzling displays of vivid, bright flowers. However these bedding favourites are prone to fizzling out prematurely by late summer; usually because spent blooms have been allowed to remain in situ, with plants diverting energy into producing seed pods. Deadheading as soon as a flower goes over holds the key to keeping displays at their prime but gardeners must take care to snip off the entire flower, including the base, because that's where seed pods begin to swell. The same rule applies to many other popular summer favourites. French marigolds, for example, quickly go over unless the entire spent bloom and seed pod are quickly removed. Sweet peas must have seed pods removed before they develop, or plants will stop flowering.
Shrubs
Certain shrubs that flower once a year benefit from deadheading after displays are over. Camellias look magnificent in full bloom but flowers are susceptible to bad weather, turning brown rapidly after rain. Shabby blooms can simply be pinched from plants. Late spring and early summer glories such as lilac, rhododendron and azalea will appear tidier if spent flowers are removed from plants where dead flower heads join the stems. Lavatera can flower over a longer period if tired blooms are removed while cutting away faded flowers of Buddleja at their base can spur plants into bearing extra blooms.
Roses
Consistently voted the nation's favourite flower, the sight and scent of roses in full bloom is one of the greatest joys of summer. With regular deadheading these plants can often be enjoyed into summer. Read our article to find out more about deadheading roses.
Feeding after deadheading
While deadheading encourages plants to produce further flushes of flowers, liquid fertilisers will boost these flowers even further. We recommend Boost All Purpose Liquid Plant Food which feature an optimised ratio of nutrients that come with the promise of four times more blooms!
Did you know that tomato food also works wonders on flowering plants? Why not try Westland Big Tom, this feed helps gardeners to achieve three times more fruits, its potassium-rich formula works a treat on flowers, too, encouraging plants to carry on blooming profusely.
