Deadhead - Not Bed Head!

Deadheading is an importance part of maintaining your flower bed, primarily when it comes to your annual plants. Deadheading is simply removing the dead flower from your plant. When your flower goes brown on your petunia plant or New Guinea impatiens, gently pull it off. And when that large geranium flower lost its colour, go to the bottom of that stalk and pinch it off. How about that yellow flower on your tomato plant that turned brown?.. Do NOT remove that! Yes that eventually becomes a tomato.

Most plants need to be deadheaded, if the dead flower is not removed, the plant will start putting energy towards that flower turning to seed. Therefore, the plant will not concentrate on producing new flowers. Flowers like daisies, cosmos, bidens and "osteos", quickly show a lack of deadheading in the plant. You will have a wonderful, bushy, green plant with absolutely no colour. If you do not have time to meticulously maintain these specific plants in your flower pots or gardens, plant none of these, or just one or two. Trust me.

Herbs are similar as well, except typically you do not want the plant to flower at all. The whole point of an herb plant is to have an abundance of leaves. When you let an herb plant start flowering, the energy redirects to flower production and less to leaf production.

Vegetable plant flowers as stated above with my tomato example, should be left alone. Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc, all come from the pollinated flower!

"True, the grass withers, and the wildflowers fades, but our God's Word stands firm and forever."

Isaiah 40:8

Blessings,

Sarah