The summer brings many benefits to our gardens, including longer hours of sunlight and warmer soil. When it comes to plant care, the main thing you want to focus on is flowering to ensure that your flowers are producing the healthiest and fullest blooms as possible. However, with the many benefits the sunshine offers, it also comes with downsides, and with the extremely high temperatures the UK has been experiencing, it puts both crops and flowers at risk.
The high temperatures are expected to continue throughout July, and with extreme temperatures potentially causing rapid wilting, crispy petal edges, and fading colours, gardeners are being urged to carry out one specific task.
According to Gardeners’ World, July is a good month to deadhead your flowers. Deadheading simply means removing flowers as they fade. The gardening task comes with many benefits, but the main reason deadheading is important is that it “encourages a second flush of flowers to develop”, giving you a more vibrant and colourful garden for longer.
Deadheading can also protect the foliage and prevent seed formation. While it is pretty easy to carry out, it can be time-consuming, but it is well worth doing for a beautiful and healthy garden.
You will need scissors, floral snips, or secteurs.
The first thing you want to do is use your scissors, florist’s snips, or even just your finger and thumb to remove any dying flowers, to keep them blooming longer.
You should then use secateurs to regularly deadhead repeat-flowering roses to encourage more flower buds.
How often you need to deadhead, and whether you need to do it at all, depends on your plant’s natural cycle. It is important to remember that plants naturally reproduce and their own, typically by developing fruit and/or seeds, which birds and other animals can eat.
However, if your main concern is redirecting the plant’s energy from producing seeds to growing new buds, then this simple task is key to longer-lasting flowers throughout the sunny season.
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