Sunny and warm: a perfect morning for cats and gardeners. The cat had her chores, mainly to stare at interesting things in the garden, and I had mine.
Task #1 was to deadhead the arctotis (African daisy) that has been blooming for several months. This is the “before” on one plant…
…and the “after” on another. Arctotis goes on blooming regardless of whether it’s been deadheaded or not. But the plants looked like they were winding down for the year, and I was hoping to extend their season a bit.
The plants are attractive, but I thought the bucket of trimmings was pretty cool, too.
Chore #2 was to weed one of the patches of bromeliads that we’d let loose in the back of a raised bed. 
The plant has rigid spines like teeth on a sharp saw blade, which makes weeding tricky, and forces you to ask yourself, “Do I really want to do this?”
John started on the task and ended up with bloody forearms. Not happy. He went for the pitchfork, thinking we could lift the clumps, weed under them, and then set the clumps back. These are plants with almost no roots, and that would have worked fine.
But I proposed another idea. I have these long cordura motorcycle gauntlets that I use when I ride my scooter when it’s cold out. They protect your hands, but also your forearms. Would those work for the garden, too?
I suited up, first a thick long-sleeved sweatshirt, and then the gauntlets. Okay, it’s not particularly haute couture, and it’s not a look I’d want to inflict on the world. But it worked.
Why all this effort? Well, the flowers are pretty stunning right now in an unrestrained, tropical way. And the plants are surprising drought-tolerant.
Weeding around them seems to be the main challenge. But now we’ve got an easy solution…
April 17 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: bromeliads • cats • deadheading • weeding | 6 Comments »
While we were in L.A. we stopped by the houses of John’s cousin and aunt. Here are a few shots of some of their nice plantings.
Poolside plantings at Chris and Susie’s
First, poolside at Cousin Chris and Susie’s house, was this nice South Seas looking combination of leafy giant bird of paradise (
Strelitzia nicolai) with the jewel-tone foliage of
Iresine herbstii. The latter plant has a few common names like “beefsteak plant,” “bloodleaf” and—most unfortunate of all—“chicken gizzard.” Gross. Who thought up that name?
One of Susie’s sisters is a landscaper who was a finalist on Home and Garden Television’s Landscaper’s Challenge, and it was handy to have her sisterly advice. But Susie made the plant selections herself.
Then it was off to Aunt Barbara’s. One of her friends had hired a service that cleared and amended a bed, installed irrigation and then planted a warm-weather and then a cool-weather assortment of plants.
Mailbox planting
Barbara liked the idea of having lots of flowers without having to break her back putting them in, so she had the service do her own yard. Here are a couple shots of the summer mix, featuring zinnias, salvias, delphiniums, celosias, marigolds, portulacas, lisianthus, plus some sun-tolerant varieties of coleus nearby.
Aunt Barbara’s front walk
But preparing the beds and planting the plants and installing a watering system isn’t all that’s required to keep these plants looking nice. Whenever she has a chance, Barbara takes a walk out to her plants and pulls off the spent flowers. By her careful deadheading, the plantings stay looking fresh many months after they’re set in the ground.
I’m sure she spends as much time tending the plants as it took to put them in. Still, she’s a gardener and enjoys her outdoor time. Some people might call it work, but I don’t think any of us would.
September 10 2008 | Categories: gardening • landscape design | Tags: Aunt Barbara's garden • Chris and Susie's garden • deadheading • plant combinations | 5 Comments »
Maybe I was inspired by the garden designs of Piet Oudolf. Maybe I was inspired by my recent trip to see things turning brown in Los Peñasquitos Preserve. Or maybe I’m just a little busy and/or slacker-ey in the doldrums of summer.
Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to let the flowering heads on a lot of plants do their natural thing and turn brown, to see what they look like. These are all experiments that I might develop into something a little more finished looking at some point. And all this is taking place in the front yard, where appearance is everything. What will the neighbors say? Hopefully they have a similar sense of adventure.
The plant on the top of this picture is a spiraea I bought fifteen years ago. This is before I started my plant database, and the label is long gone. I’m still working on researching the species. Even the California native Spiraea douglassii likes a little bit of water, but this one in the front yard gets very little in the summer. It’s even survived six weeks or more with no irrigation. It doesn’t look the prettiest that way, but it survives.
Here it is contrasted against the almost-white foliage of common dusty miller, Senecio bicolor subsp. cineraria, a plant usually sold as an annual. But it’s hung on for well over five years in this tough spot. Looks pretty good most of the year, too.
Another plant with light-colored foliage is Santolina chamaecyparissus, also called lavender cotton, ground cypress, and a few other things. I like the swoop-ey rhythm of the dried flower heads and stalks. This is one of those plants I really hate in bloom. The yellow against the gray foliage for two weeks in early summer is unfortunate. And the flowers smell creepy, too—something between bad medicine and paint remover. At least the plant stays a nice mound of grayish foliage most of the year.
And the last plant in this little gallery is some basic lavender, contrasted against the brown-red foliage and seed heads of red feather grass, Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’. Some people dead-head their lavender, both to lengthen bloom-time and to keep the plants tidier. I like the pointillist bits of lavender with the gray-green foliage and the brown of the dead flowering heads.
I’m not positive that deadheading the spent flowers off the lavender does much to keep the plant blooming: It looks good winter through about now, and then starts to slow down as my watering slows down. The santolina blooms once a year, deadheaded or not. And the spiraea…well, the thing that would perk it up the most would be some more water and not vigilant removing of its spent blooms. Poor plant. It had the sad fortune of ending up in my yard as its adoptive home. San Diego isn’t surf and fun and sunshine all the time…
August 20 2008 | Categories: gardening • landscape design • my garden • plant profiles | Tags: deadheading • drought-tolerant landscaping • dusty miller • lavender • Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' • Santolina chamaecyparissus • Senecio bicolor • spiraea | 2 Comments »
I don’t deadhead every flowering plant in the garden—That would drive me crazy! Besides there are plants that produce seeds that keep the local bird population happy, and many of these plants are annuals that would only come back next year from seed.
There are some lettuce plants that I’ve been letting go to seed for the last decade or so. I put up with some slightly scrappy looking plants for a month or so. But there are some little yellow-green finches that descend on the vegetable garden, making a most excellent squawking racket. And when the weather turns cool again, there’s a nice little collection of baby lettuces, all from seed, some plants for the salad plate, some to make more seeds for the birds.
July 02 2008 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: deadheading • lettuce • reseeding | 2 Comments »
You probably know someone like this: Through their young adulthood, through the prime dating years, they hit the gym hard, run, watch what they eat, and pay close attention to styles so that they were always immaculately dressed. But then they eventually meet a mate and settle down. As life’s other priorities take over, the former jock or swimwear model puts on a few midriff pounds and stops being interested in how they look to potential suitors.
That’s the same phenomenon that happens with a lot of flowering plants in the garden. Once they reach maturity, they go crazy putting out flowers to charm pollinators. But before long, the plants have literally gone to seen and start looking scrappy.
These are probably plants that you invited into your garden because of their flowers, not because of their ability to set seed. With many annuals, shrubs and perennials removing the spent flowers—deadheading— is a reliable way to extend the blooming period and keep the plants tidy.
Here’s a plant of the perennial blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella, that I’ve been deadheading regularly for the last two months. Left to its own devices it would set seed and bloom a lot less or not at all. The process isn’t difficult and can be a relaxing way to spend a few minutes in the garden, clippers in one hand and a refreshing beverage in the other.
Of course one of the most satisfying forms of deadheading is to cut flowers with a bit of stem to bring inside and enjoy in a vase!
Of these two flowers, the one on the left is ready to be removed.
A week’s worth of spent flowers, ready for the recycling or compost.
Here are some basic deadheading guidelines for a few other kinds of plants:
Many annuals (marigolds, calendulas, cosmos, zinnias, geraniums, pansies, petunias): You can pinch off the old flower on most of these, or you can also use a sharp pair of pruners. Fortunately many annuals are bred to be low maintenance, so they can look great for a long time even without the extra work. But a little attention can keep them looking nicer, longer.
Plants with tall stalks of flowers (snapdragons, floxgloves, penstemons, some sages): Wait until the stem has finished blooming or has just a couple of ragged flowers. Cut the entire stalk below where the lowest flower formed, and above a stem node.
Roses (most modern hybrids): Cut the stems to just above a node where you see five leaves emerging. Cutting higher may give you a few more flowers, but they’ll likely be smaller and on weaker stems.
Bulbs: Cut the flowering stem once the blooms have faded, making the cut towards the base of the plant. Even though bulbs generally won’t rebloom the same season after deadheading, cutting off the developing seed heads will allow the leaves to recharge the bulb for next year’s flowering instead of producing seed.
July 01 2008 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: deadheading • Gaillardia pulchella • reblooming | 4 Comments »
The plant has rigid spines like teeth on a sharp saw blade, which makes weeding tricky, and forces you to ask yourself, “Do I really want to do this?”
Why all this effort? Well, the flowers are pretty stunning right now in an unrestrained, tropical way. And the plants are surprising drought-tolerant.
