grateful dead

One way to make the best use of your time while you're doing all that watering we talked about last time is to multi-task: water and dead head at the same time.

For the garden novices out there, let me explain.  All creation has an innate need to procreate (with a few odd exceptions, but we won't go there).  Flowers are no different.  Here is how it works.  A little green plant sends out tiny white flowers and we are delighted, the bees are delighted and the plant itself is delighted.  When the flower is spent, it works to become a seed pod that dries up and drops it's little seeds on the ground for next year's babies.  This completed process signals to the plant that it has fulfilled it's life purpose and can now die.  Kinda sad, isn't it?  The plant will actually begin to loose its color and die if you don't do something to stop the process.  So we deadhead - cut, pinch, snip, karate chop the spent blooms off the plant to trick it into producing more blooms.  That way your garden will have flowers all season long.

But

Not all plants that are deadheaded will re-bloom: lilacs, flowers grown from bulbs, peonies, certain types of hydrangea are a few.  Sorry.  However, cut the dead flowers off anyway to promote overall plant health and appearance.

I have included some examples of before and after.  It's best to remove the entire bloom, stem and all, but if you're in a rush, the flower head itself will do (it just won't look so good).

While you're at it, remove any old, faded leaves on the plant too.