One of my favourite gardening jobs is to wander round the garden, with a cup of tea in hand, and dead-head flowers.
It’s a good way to relax and keep an eye on what’s happening in the garden, but there are two other good reasons
- cut them before they die and there’ll be more cut flowers for the house, not so much dead-heading as live-heading
- the plant will produce more and more flowers.
A plants’ mission in life is to produce as much seed as possible before it dies.
Picking flowers in full bloom (recommended, so you have cut flowers for the house) or snipping them as they fade (not so much fun, they just end up in the compost bin) encourages the plant to produce more flowers to make more seed.
- Remember to leave a few roses on the plant in late summer if you’re growing the type of roses that produce those wonderful rose-hips.
- Cut just above a pair of leaves, a plant is more likely to produce flower shoots from this part of the stem.
Jill
image: Jill Anderson
