Dead heading advice

Jonathanp · July 2018

I’m after some advice on dead heading. I was planning on removing all flowers before I go away for a couple of weeks in the hope the garden will be full of blooms when I get back. However most of my cosmos haven’t started flowering yet. Can I remove the flower buds or will that harm the plants?

Blue Onion · July 2018

Nope, it also use cause them to bush out and produce twice as many flowers upon your return.

Jonathanp · July 2018

Great. Cheers.

ZeroZero1 · July 2018

Might take longer than a couple of weeks. Dead heading usually refers to removing seed pods after flowering.

Jonathanp · July 2018

I was going to just remove flowers but there aren’t many. Thought if the buds flower while I’m away they might have gone to seed before I get back.

Purplerain · July 2018

Deadheading is fooling a plant into continuous flowering. It also prevents seeds from throwing themselves about where you don't want them.

As your Cosmos has not even begun to flower yet (as have many species of mine) I would leave them and give them a chance to bloom, unless you want them to flower in late September.

ZeroZero1 · July 2018

I agree leave them alone, they will flower but Cosmos tends to flower perpetually anyway. You can easily dead head on return. Maybe save some seeds for next year too, if they mature

Jonathanp · July 2018

I’ll leave them to do their think then. Thanks.

Fairygirl · July 2018

Deadheading just means removing spent flower heads before they set seed Jonathan, so if you have no flowers - there's nothing to remove! Removing buds early on in the season helps produce bushier growth, and eventually more flowers, but in your case, I'd leave them and you should have a good display when you get back, and plenty of seedheads/flowers to remove!

Dead heading advice

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