How to Deadhead Flowers

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen from vanveenbulbs.com. Next we are going to talk about how to deadhead flowers. So it is really not that complicated. My theory in my garden is if it looks lush and beautiful leave it alone and if it looks dead cut it out. Deadheading is just like it sounds. You are just cutting the heads of the dead flowers out. So right now these acidenthera have been blooming but there are still some blooms on them. The bottom part looks tacky so I'll just cut these little parts that are done blooming out or I can pull them right out too. A lot of times if you leave them they'll go to seed and then you can spread the seeds around but with deadheading you are pretty much cutting them out before they go to seed. As soon as they look tacky you are chopping them out. So I am kind of just pulling these out that is a good way to do it. I have got this agapanthus, it's done blooming, the color is gone. It is making seed pods so to deadhead it I am actually just going to cut it to the ground and cut the stem out. These are actually seed pods so my rule of thumb is they are not completely dry but there is still seeds in there so instead of throwing them away what I have done is just cut them out and I'm cutting the greens out and I'm just letting those seeds drop back down by my agapanthus or Lily of the Nile and a lot of times they will start new starts that way. The same with my Cala Lilies, a lot of times towards the end of the blooming cycle you will get what is called seed pods and these actually are pods of bulbs. So I'm deadheading but I'm actually saving these seed pods and so my rule of thumb is I don't usually hold anything because I am too busy to deal with it later so I will turn around as soon as I deadhead and plant that seed pod back in the ground. It might not do anything for a few years but eventually it will grow. That is what I've always been so amazed about. The same with these Cana Lilies. They are done blooming but the stem right here looks tacky so I'm just chopping it to where the leaf is. The leaf is still helping. So again I've got all these little seed pods so I could just clear those out but again I always give plants a chance to grow so I am actually cutting the seed and I could save them and plant them next Spring or I could throw them in the ground now but I kind of just take the seeds and sprinkle them around and over the years I find that I get lost more plants in the future. So a lot of times when I deadhead too, you know this is still blooming but it has just kind of fallen over and looks a little bit tacky so I am actually going to cut it out and these too. A lot of times just by straightening them out a little bit they will look a lot better and they won't fall over. So it is not necessarily the blooms that I cut out, anything that turns brown or looks tacky I have been chopping out of my garden and it just makes it look better. It is like giving my garden a haircut and there are all types of plants that you can deadhead and the same thing like this Galtonia is just about done blooming so I'm just going to chop it out and again I can save the seeds, sprinkle the seeds around or I can throw them out. It really doesn't matter, they're going to come back no matter what I do. When you deadhead you don't have to be that strict. I kind of just go in and cut out the dead plants. I have got a little tiny geranium here and I am just cutting the dead flowers out. So eventually as I keep clearing out everything I will find that it just looks better and I do this maybe only once or twice a month and it seems to make all the difference and it makes it a lot easier task at the end of the Summer when everything dies back. So deadheading is something that is easy to do. Do it when you think about it and always compost your extra plants that you don't need any more.