Salvia 'May Night' plants in bloom

During a recent visit to my brother’s house, he confessed that he might have killed some new Salvia ‘May Night’ plants that he had transplanted to the garden a few weeks before. Despite carefully burying the roots and watering the plants in, the plants had slowly turned brown.

I took a look, and the plants weren’t dead at all. The flower stalks had matured and were setting seed. They did look brown, but the foliage beneath was perfectly healthy. I told him he just needed to practice deadheading.

I’m not talking about acting like someone who’s a fan of the Grateful Dead. (Am I showing my age here?)

The flowers have faded . . .

To a gardener, this term refers to removing the spent flowers, or “dead heads”, from a plant. Deadheading can make plants look neat and tidy, and often results in new growth and more flowers from the plant.

Different plants respond to different methods of deadheading.

Some annual flowers, including zinnias, marigolds and cosmos will flower all summer if you continually remove spent flowers by cutting the stem back to the next bud or set of leaves. Perennials like tickseed (Coreopsis grandiflora) and black-eyed Susan, will also re-flower if cut back this way.

Cut the stems back to the first set of leaves below the flower head

Other plants, such as impatiens and the newer petunias, like the “wave” series, naturally drop their flowers and don’t need deadheading.

Plants with a spike of flowers, like snapdragons or my brother’s salvia, will usually produce flowering side shoots if you prune off the main flower stalk once it has flowered.

Finally, plants such as sweet William or the thread-leaf tickseeds like ‘Moonbeam’ (Coreopsis verticillata hybrids), can be cut back after blooming and will produce a second flush of blooms. Simply shear the entire plant back to about half its height after most of the blooms begin to fade. The plant will be more compact and floriferous.

The plant looks neat and tidy, and will soon put up more flowers

I remember being assigned the chore of deadheading in my mom’s garden as a child. The sticky petunia blossoms and stinky marigolds really annoyed me. Clipping around the trees, buildings and fence posts with the manual grass clippers was another loathsome task. Amazingly, I became a horticulturist anyway!

Happy Gardening,

Sue