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Keep Flowering Plants Blooming
In This Section
In this section, you’ll find discussions, explanations, and directions for managing the healthy growth of flowering plants and three step-by-step demonstrations on how to prune flowers, including:
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- How to keep flowering plants in bloom weeks or months longer.
- How to know when flowers and flowering shrubs need pruning care.
- Why flowers need your help to manage their growth and blooming.
- What to do when flowers become too crowded.
- How to lift, prune and divide flowers at their roots.
- What symptoms flowers show that are cries for your help.
- When and when not to deadhead or pinch-prune your flowering plants.
- Three step-by-step demonstrations showing how to pinch prune flowers and shape foliage as flowering plants grow, how to deadhead spent flowers, and how to root-prune ornamental plants .
On This Page
Here, you’ll find discussions of the most commonly used flower growth-management practices, beneath each of the following titles:
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- Managing Growth and Bloom
- Why Flowers Need Your Help
- Dividing Rhizomatous- and Tuberous-Rooted Flowers
- Recognizing Flower Symptoms Requiring Care
- When to Deadhead Flowers
- Recognizing Early Warning Signs of Problems
Managing Growth and Bloom
Perform simple care to keep your flowering plants healthy and blooming and control their growth, even prevent overcrowding.
Even properly planted and spaced annuals, perennials, and bulbs may become too crowded for their beds or containers [see: Planting Flowers Outdoors].
A full flower bed is beautiful and delightful to see. When flowers are overcrowded, however, they start to compete for light, water and nutrients.
They bear less flowers, and those quickly fade or die. Colonies of perennial flowers and bulbs begin to die in the center.
Most flowers benefit from thinning and a process called “deadheading,” or removing spent flowers so your plants produce new flower buds.
Why Flowers Need Your Help
Flowering plants grown each year from seed produce flowers until mature buds are pollinized and seed is produced. After that occurs perennials go dormant and annuals die.
Deadheading fading flowers before they set seed signals to the plant to keep growing new flower buds. This cycle repeats over and over, in so-called “flushes” of new flowers to renew your beds.
Culling dead flowers and directing their growth are each tasks to perform. You’ll find step-by-step pictures and directions in our demonstrations [see: Pinching and Deadheading].
Some flowering plants seldom require deadheading, such as Balsam (Impatiens wallerana). They are “self-cleaning” species that drop their blossoms before they go to seed.
Others, including some Aster species, simply don’t respond well or produce few new flowers once dying blossoms are removed. Once cut, they’re done with blooming for the rest of the season. It’s better to let flowers such as these produce seed. Gather it and plant it the following year. [see: Collecting and Saving Flower Seeds].
Eventually, as autumn approaches, it’s best to let annual plants set seed and allow them to complete their lifecycle [see: Flower Plant Lifecycles].
Let your perennial flowers retain their last flush of flowers, too. They will mature and trigger dormancy or grow divisions at their roots, making many new plants for your bed.
Dividing Rhizomatous- and Tuberous-Rooted Flowers
Flowering plants with special roots called rhizomes, tuberous, or fibrous roots grow and behave much like bulbs [see: Bulb Basics].
Unlike other perennials, they reproduce two ways: seed and root division. Over time and left to their own devices, they grow into crowded colonies. The oldest plants, located in the center of the colony lose vigor and begin to die.
Young plants around the margins produce the most flowers, creating a donut-shaped and unsightly group in your beds or borders.
When this happens, gardeners lift and divide the plants in the colony, replanting the young sprouts at their original or new locations and discarding the old, dying plants [see: Dividing Bulbs and Roots].
True bulbs, corms, and tubers also require lifting and dividing after a few years as they become crowded. You’ll find convenient demonstrations of how to perform those divisions, too.
The difference is that most true bulbs and bulb-like plants are cured and stored rather than immediately replanted [see: Curing and Storing Bulbs].
These stored bulbs should be replanted at their proper planting season in order to produce flowers [see: Bulb Planting Seasons].
Dividing crowded and overgrown colonies and bulbs yields many new flowering plants to add to your landscape or containers. Share the bounty with other flower-loving friends.
Recognizing Flower Symptoms Requiring Care
Good gardeners learn how to recognize when their flowers need care and division to reduce overcrowding and remove dying plants.
At any given time during the blooming season, flowering plants will have immature or nacent flower buds, mature flowers in full bloom, and flowers that are fading. They’ll also have new, old, and dying leaves.
Make it a standard practice to visit your flower beds and containers at least several times per week to look for signs of dying flowers, yellowing or wilting foliage, and overcrowding.
When to Deadhead Flowers
Promptly remove all dying or dead flowers and leaves from your plants throughout the blooming period.
Two different methods are used for removing both flowers and foliage [see: Pinching and Deadheading].
Pinching is simple and requires no tools. The dying flower or leaf stem is pinched between the forefinger and thumbnail to cleanly remove it.
Hand pruning shears do the same job when deadheading.
Always use bypass pruning shears for deadheading, never anvil pruning shears. Bypass pruners have two sharp blades that cut stems, while anvil pruners are used for pruning larger stalks and stems, crushing them between one sharp blade and a receiving anvil on the other side of the shears.
Recognizing Early Warning Signs of Problems
As you remove spent flowers and foliage, take the opportunity to look closely to see if any pests or diseases are present [see: Flower Pest and Disease Solutions].
Examine foliage for dead leaf edges or wilting that either may be due to insufficient water or fungal diseases of the plants’ roots.
Finally, also look for yellowing or purple-tinged discoloration of leaves that are telltale signs of nutritional problems.
Should any of these problems occur, take steps to correct them, increase or decrease water applications, or fertilize your flowers.