This week I’ve been busy deadheading my perennials that bloomed early in the season. I don’t deadhead all of my plants, just specific ones that I know will bloom again, like catmint, ‘Stella de Oro’ lillies, sage and salvia. I also deadhead my daylillies as they’re blooming to keep them blooming longer.
Other plants I cut off the seed heads because they’re rather aggressive reseeders and I don’t want them taking over my flowerbeds. These include: chives, balloon flowers, wild geraniums and a few others.
I only deadhead plants until about the end of July, after that I leave them be (except for seed heads of invasives) so that they can store up energy for overwintering. Some plants get sheared off completely (catmint & lillies), others just get the dead flower heads cut off of them to tidy them up a big (sages, daylillies and balloon flowers).
I didn’t always deadhead, but I started to have trouble with some aggressive plants taking over and nudging out some of the plants that I wanted, so I started deadheading. I also like how it cleans up the garden and gets rid of the some of the brown, it just makes everything look a little nicer. Surprisingly it’s a garden chore that really doesn’t take that long, and it provides some compost fodder, so it does have it’s rewards.
Do you deadhead your plants or do you let nature run it’s course?
