Deadheading flowers refers to cutting off faded flowers from annual and perennial plants. You can use clippers or pinch the blooms off with your fingers below the spent flower and just above the first set of full leaves.

Deadheading can help improve the number of flowers and extend the bloom time of some plants – here’s why.

Once a flower fades, the plant spends it’s energy on making seeds where that flower was. This is natures way of producing future generations of plants. If you deadhead, the plant focuses that energy on producing more flowers instead of seeds, thus increasing flowers and bloom time.

Not to confuse you, but not all flowers should be deadheaded and the practice is detrimental to some. Do your homework first and look up information on your plants before deadheading.

Here’s another twist – Proven Winners® plant varieties are bred to be seedless making deadheading these annuals unnecessary.

If you don’t have time to deadhead, that’s perfectly OK, don’t fret or beat yourself up. Your plants will still naturally reward you with beautiful blooms and be healthy throughout the season.