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E-mail StoryJoan Swenson: Deadhead now to give your garden a pick-me-up
| Thursday, Jul 3 2008 12:38 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jul 3 2008 1:46 PM
It’s deadheading time. By pruning the dead or dying flowers from everything from roses to crape myrtles, from zinnias to hollyhocks, and from marigolds to impatiens, you can improve the appearance of your yard and get a burst of new flowers in a few weeks.
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Leaf cutter bee damage.
I cut down my hollyhock stalks last week, as short as I could, poking my pruner deep into the thicket of newer green stalks and older, tougher brown stalks. Some of the stalks I cut were eight or nine feet tall and covered with seed heads packed with flat round seeds. The seeds scattered as I dragged them off and they will no doubt find their way into the soil here and there and I’ll have new hollyhocks sprouting in the yard next spring.
Pruning the old hollyhock stalks will encourage new stalks to develop. Summer’s stalks will be shorter than springtime’s stalks, but I think they are quite pretty and more manageable than spring’s monsters.
For most other flowers, make you cut just above a leaf juncture to encourage quick renewal of the plants. Carry a bucket or pull your green waste bin along to toss in cuttings as you deadhead. You may be surprised to find some flowers for a few bouquets as you work. Last week as I deadheaded roses that I thought were mostly toast, I found half a dozen little blooms that were perfect for displaying in an old cut crystal jelly server, whose lid was long ago lost.
Agapanthus flower heads fade in July and will ultimately produce green seed heads where the flowers formerly bloomed. I hate to see them go, but they must. With a lopping shear or a hand pruner, reach deep into the shrub and cut the stalks out.
LEAF CUTTER BEES
As I pruned roses I came across two pink Simplicity rose bushes whose leaves were peppered with holes made by leaf cutter bees. These bees are interesting creatures, cutting nearly perfect circles of foliage from smooth-leafed plants such as roses or bougainvillea.
The bees, which are small and black, take the circles back to their nests and use them as packing material between eggs. As a child, I watched a leaf cutter bee bringing colorful rounds cut from bougainvillea bracts and filling the tubes of a bamboo wind chime on my mother’s patio. The bees are creative in where they nest; I watched another bee years ago filling holes in grape stake fence with leaf cuttings.
The bees do minor damage and their work is rather pretty; only a few of my plants have lacy leaves. The leaf cutters’ work in the yard pollinating flowers is worth the little bit of foliage they take.
AZALEA DEADLINE
We had to have some of the foliage pruned away from our house in preparation for painting and some azaleas had to be cut back to make way. If you have any azalea pruning to do, finish your work before July 15 or risk loss of next spring’s flowers.