This Garden Vocabulary series seeks to introduce and explain to you — and in many cases, myself — words and terms associated with gardening. Please let me know if there are any terms you would like me to explore. You can leave your ideas in the comments section and we can learn together!
Deadhead/Deadheading
To Deadhead or te deadheading of plants is the act of removing spent flower blossoms in order to stimulate new growth and new blooms in plants. If spent flowers are left on plants — and they were fertilized — the plant will put all its energy into creating fruit and seeds in order to propagate more plants. This energy is then not available for the production of more blooms.
Since we humans usually grow plants for their beautiful blooms, it makes sense to deadhead these plants — especially roses — in order to encourage more blooms rather than the production of rose hips.
Roses from my garden
More information on deadhead/deadheading:
- Deadheading from the Pruning entry on Wikipedia
- Deadheading Roses from Rose Magazine
- Deadheading Garden Flowers at About.com
Previously on Garden Vocabulary: