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| Deadheading a Hydrangea Shrub with Pruners. |
Everyone, including plants, needs a little spiffing up from time to time. In addition to basic light, water, and nutrition, a few snips of the pruners is all it takes to keep annuals and tropicals attractive and productive. Removing spent flowers, severely blemished leaves, and damaged shoots will instantly give plants a healthier appearance. Because it is a plant's mission in life to set seed and reproduce, deadheading most plants will also encourage mor blooms. With true annuals, deadheading is imperative. If you let the set seed, they are done for. The good news: many of the plants we call annuals are not true annuals. They are tropicals that can not survice cold winters, and they keep right on trucking for the summer whether you remove the spent flowers or not.
Although it is not necessary, pinching plants with branching habits like coleus, lantana, castor bean or tomatoes will encourage bushier, fuller growth. When you remove a tip of a stem it triggers side shoots to start sprouting. This technique will reduce the plant's overall size, keeping it more compact, but with the payoff of a lush appearance. Many times pinching can be handy when you are trying to keep enthusiastic growers from overpowering a planting and its bedfellows. Once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how easy it is to manipulate a plant's growth and keep it in scale with smaller or slower-growing neighbors. All it takers is a simple snip of the stem.
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