Many herbaceous perennials, roses, bedding and annuals respond to deadheading by producing more flowers. This can extend the season of colour in your garden, especially in late summer when there’s little else in bloom.
The purpose of flowers is to enable plants to reproduce. As they fade, the plant’s energy switches to producing fruit or seeds. This stops the production of more flowers, reduces vigour and may even signal the beginning of the end for annuals and summer bedding plants.
Browse our list of plants that will produce more flowers when fading blooms are removed.
Camellia
As camellia flowers fade they turn brown and mushy, and can look unsightly if they stick to the otherwise glossy leaves. Deadheading won’t encourage the plant to produce more blooms but it will improve the appearance of the plant as the season turns. Other shrubs that bloom only once in a season, such as lilacs, also benefit from deadheading as the removal of old flowers can help conserve the plant’s resources, maintaining healthy leaf and root growth. Simply pinch off old blooms.
Hebe
Deadheading spent hebe flowers encourages the production of more blooms, lengthening the season of colour in your garden as well as improving appearance of the shrub itself. Cut back spent blooms to the base of the flower.
Peonies
Deadheading peonies helps to improve the appearance of the plant, reduce the likelihood of fungal infections developing and could channel the plant’s energy back into the roots and leaves, which will improve flowering the following year. Simply cut the spent flowers at the base.
Buddleja
Buddleia flowers quickly turn brown once they’ve finished their display, giving the plant a tatty appearance. Prune old blooms at their base to improve their appearance and to encourage further blooms.
Roses
Repeat-flowering roses respond particularly well to deadheading, as they continue blooming for many more weeks than if they were left to produce hips. Snip fading blooms back to the main stem and remove any faded petals that have stuck to the leaves, to prevent fungal infections from developing.
Cosmos
Cosmos is an annual plant that starts developing seeds as the flowers fade. Deadhead the plant by removing the spent blooms right back to the main stem, in order to prolong flowering. Later on, you may want to let some of the flowers develop seeds so you have some to sow for the following year.
Dahlias
Perennial dahlias grow back each year but deadheading them helps to prolong flowering as well as divert the plant’s energy back to the corms after the plant has finished blooming. The difference between buds and spent flower heads can be confusing – the buds are round while spent blooms are more pointed. Remove the whole flowering stem.
