Deadheading. Stupid question.

[ImFree2doasiwant]

Do I need to deadhead everything that flowers? I usually do the roses. I've just been out and the cornflower and geum have dead flowers and new ones coming. Also, I've planted some hanging baskets and pots. Do they all need deadheading. Sorry, very novice gardener.

Apparently it helps wildlife to thrive if you leave the heads on fiyr a bit, as birds etc can eat the flower seeds.

I’m also a novice gardener (so no idea really), but I think you’re supposed to deadhead everything that flowers. I saw somewhere today that you’re supposed to cut down the stem by the nearest leaf on things - I’ve just been picking the heads off right under the flower! 😳

Most plants stop producing flowers once they set seed so the idea of dead heading is to stop that process so the plant goes on flowering. With most annual bedding plants you do this by nipping off the flower heads as they go over before the seed heads have a chance to grow.. Really important to do this for plants in hanging baskets and pots because they are under strain anyway so their natural tendency is to set seed as fast as they can, if you keep Feeding, watering and deadheading your hanging baskets will look a lot better for much longer.

With roses it’s a better idea to cut ( use sharp secateurs to avoid damaging the plant) the stem down to above a healthy leaf. Some roses, will only flower once in a season, but others are more free flowering.

Bushy perennial herbaceous plants like cranesbills will grow back and re flower if you cut them back quite hard. You can be smart about this, by cutting the furthest away from the front part of the plant, leaving the front, the front will flower, then you cut that back , by which time the back part has grown up. Then by the time that has stopped flowering the front has grown again. So the plant looks good for longer.

If they are clearly individual flowers like marigolds , pinks etc then just nip off the flower head as it goes over.

Be careful not to get carried away and take off the flower heads of things you want to keep for seeds because they look good , like sunflowers, honesty, teasels, thistles, agapanthus, allium.

Sorry, I meant healthy outward facing bud for roses!. And some roses, you leave the flowers because you want the rose hips in the autumn.

Thank you, plenty to do pottering around in the evenings then!

Geums yes, or the bastards self seed everywhere.

Be careful not to get carried away and take off the flower heads of things you want to keep for seeds because they look good , like sunflowers, honesty, teasels, thistles, agapanthus, allium.

Yes, and these won't produce more flowers in the same year. Also foxgloves, poppies, forget me nots and aquilegias- let these set seed and either self seed or take off the heads and shake where you want the seed.

I collected a lot of agapanthus seed last year, sowed indoors and now have a rather excessive number of seedlings.

a gardener friend tuts and says ‘ new flowers don’t grow on the end of old stems’ so yes cut or nip off just above a bud.

They all flower much longer if you deadhead and remember to feed.

A plant's sole reason for existence is to reproduce. Once it's done that by producing seeds, it doesn't need to use energy by flowering any more. If you deadhead, then you are persuading the plant to continue flowering.

Later in the summer you can start to leave seed heads on, to collect the seed or let the plant self-seed round the garden, for food for wildlife during the winter, or because the seed pods or rosehips etc are attractive in their own right.

It would be a full time job to dead head everything. I do hanging baskets and things I don't want to seed such as aquilegia.