Deadheading Is the Key to Prettier Plants and Bigger Blooms – Here's How to Do It the Right Way

Deadheading is an important task in the garden. It's simple to do and can have a big positive impact on plants. When done the right way, deadheading can encourage more blooming and keeps plants looking neat and tidy.

Most annuals and many perennials will continue to bloom throughout the growing season if you regularly deadhead faded flowers. But it's vital to prune plants at the proper time and make the correct cuts or else you risk ruining blooms and inviting diseases into your garden.

Here's everything you need to know about how to deadhead flowers, when to cut back faded blooms, and how to avoid the most common mistakes that could inadvertently hurt plants.

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

What Is Deadheading?

The term “deadheading” refers to the act of removing flowers from a plant. In most instances, these are blooms that have started to age and are no longer considered attractive. Deadheading faded flowers keeps plants looking fresh and tidy. It can also encourage more blooming that lasts longer during the season.

On occasion, gardeners may also find it necessary to remove flowers or buds that have been damaged from pests or diseases. So deadheading is a way to keep plants healthy, blooming, and looking their best.

Benefits of Deadheading

For many gardeners, deadheading flowers is already an important aspect of routine plant care. This is especially true of ornamentals within the home landscape. Here are some of the top benefits of deadheading:

1. It Makes Plants Look Better

As flowers age, most begin to drop their petals and start to dry out. This is much less aesthetically pleasing than fresh healthy blooms. Deadheading makes plants look less messy and tired, and also stops the petals from dropping to the ground and creating excess debris.

2. It Helps Prevent Disease

Decomposing plant matter, whether it's on the plant or the ground beneath it, creates an ideal environment for fungal and bacterial plant diseases. Clearing away spent flowers before they have a chance to start decomposing goes a long way toward keeping your plant healthy.

3. It Encourages More Flowers

As flowers shed their petals and begin to form seed heads, energy is focused on the development of the seeds, rather than the flowers. Regular deadheading, however, channels the energy into the flowers. This results in healthier plants, more flowers, and an extended growing season.

4. It Controls Unwanted Spread

Even if you love your flowers, you many not want them spreading throughout your garden and yard. Deadheading plants removes flowers before they have the opportunity to produce and spread their seeds. This technique is especially important for controlling plants known for their ability to self-seed.

Essential Tools for Deadheading

When Should You Deadhead Plants?

Get in the habit of deadheading early and often. Even if you spend just a short time in the garden each day, your deadheading tasks will be much easier and you will potentially be rewarded with more blooms.

Start deadheading early in the growing season, around late spring, when there are only a few plants with faded flowers. Repeat the process every couple of days and the chore of deadheading flowers will lessen each time.

If you deadhead repeat blooming plants starting early in the season and keep up with the task as the summer progresses, you will enjoy more flowers and extend the bloom cycle. Many annual flowers like zinnias and geraniums respond very well to deadheading and will put out more blooms the more you cut them back.

However, if you choose to wait until later in the season, like early fall, the task of deadheading can become overwhelming. Plus, by that point you will have missed out on the chance of repeat blooming.

How to Deadhead Flowers

Deadheading techniques can vary depending upon the type of plant. Here are the most common and effective methods:

Pinching

Many species can be “pinched.” When gardeners pinch flowers, they are able to quickly and efficiently remove plant matter with the use of their fingers. This method works well on plants with thin stems and soft leaves.

As plants fade out of bloom, pinch or cut off the flower stem below the spent flower and just above the first set of full, healthy leaves. Repeat with all the dead flowers on the plant.

If you're pinching your plants, it's a good idea to wear a quality pair of gardening gloves, like these ones from Amazon, to protect against abrasions and to limit potential exposure to toxic species.

Pruning

You can also use pruners or secateurs to deadhead plants. These are ideal for larger flowers, such as those produced by woody perennials or shrubs. Select tools that are sharp and clean can make precise cuts without crushing or damaging the plant’s stems.

To keep plants looking their best, make each cut as far back to the nearest set of healthy leaves as possible. You should also always clean your pruners between each plant to limit the spread of disease.

While you can remove individual flowers produced on tall stems, those that are small or grow in clusters may be difficult or tedious to snip. In these instances, shearing back the plant may be the best solution. A handheld hedge trimmer like this from Amazon makes this job easy. To give your plants a bigger prune, remove approximately one-third of the plant before faded flowers start to produce seed.

Always check plants carefully to ensure that no fresh flower buds are hiding amid the faded blooms before you shear off the top of the plant. If you happen to find any new buds, cut the stem just above them.

Do All Flowers Require Deadheading?

Results of deadheading a plant will vary from one species to another. To better determine whether or not a plant’s flowers should be removed, it's important to understand its growth cycle.

Annual flowers are those that grow, bloom, and produce seed within a single season. As reproduction is essential to the survival of annual types, most respond positively to deadheading. However, there are self-cleaning annual flowers that don't need deadheading. These include petunias, impatiens, and begonias.

Perennials respond to deadheading differently from species to species. Those that do best are ones that are known to bloom repeatedly, like perennial varieties of salvia, garden phlox, and certain roses.

Flowers You Should Always Deadhead

Many annual flowers require deadheading in order to encourage the prolonged production of new buds. Cut-and-come-again flowers, or those that naturally continue to bloom throughout the entire growing season, are most ideal. Deadheading these types of plants will that you'll enjoy bright bursts of color throughout the entirety of the summer season.

Certain types of perennials may also respond well to deadheading, promoting additional flushes of blooms beyond the plant’s typical flowering period. Some of the more commonly grown plants that reward this effort with a second bloom are:

• Cosmos
• Garden Phlox
• Delphinium
• Lupine
• Sage
• Salvia
• Veronica
• Shasta daisy
• Yarrow
• Coneflower
• Astilbe
• Coreopsis
• Blanket Flower

Flowers You Should Never Deadhead

Though improper deadheading will not cause harm to most plants, it can negatively impact their bloom or introduce unwanted diseases. Many types of flowering shrubs, for example, perform best when spent flowers are allowed to remain throughout the duration of winter.

The same can also be said for several species of late-blooming perennials. Still other plants, like impatiens and petunias, are self-cleaning and drop their spent flowers naturally. Waiting until the appropriate time to prune these plants helps them to be well-prepared for the season ahead. Some plants you should never deadhead include:

• Hollyhocks
• Foxglove
• Lobelia
• Forget-Me-Not
• Impatiens
• Petunias

Nothing is more rewarding to a gardener than watching the garden come to life with beautiful blooms. By practicing the task of deadheading throughout the season, nature will bless you with a second wave of blooms to enjoy even more.