Dead Heading

Hi all,

There might be such a simple answer to this but my mother in law is forever telling me to dead head my flowering plants when the flowers die off, I get that this probably means to remove the flower heads but how? Do I cut them off, snap them off ect, and what about the stems? At the moment I have borders with Alliums and Peonie (sp?) I think and the flowers on each have both gone decidedly horrid looking, if I cut the heads off will I damage these plants? They look a bit unsightly at the moment, but I dont want to stop them coming up next year. Also, whilst I am admiting my total lack of knowledge what does 'gone to seed' mean?? And is it a bad thing?

Eve

 

Chop or pick the finished heads off, otherwise the plant diverts all its energy to producing seeds. If you dead head, energy is diverted to replacing the flowers.

When a flower has gone past its best, seeds start to form in its place, at that point it has 'gone to seed'.

 

Brilliant, thanks!!!! I know logic should have told me the same thing but I think I might doubt my instincs a little too much! How nice it is to be able to ask people in the know!

 

I only know about dead heading because I asked on here a little while ago:rotfl:

I knew about the going to seed thing though because years ago I used to grow veg, and I would always plants tons of lettuces even though I didn't like it that much, so I'd eat about 3 or 4 of them and then the rest would end up going to seed.

 

In my book that still makes you a seasoned pro!!!!

I'd love to grow veggies but I just don't think I have the right place, I have one of those mini greenhouse things and plenty of room in the conservatory to get things going but I wouldn't know what to do with them when they needed to be planted out as I only really have raised beds and lawn!

 

Some veggies have attractive foliage that would not look out of place in a flower bed. The many different red lettuces spring to mind, and they grow pretty quick too. There are others. Have a look at The Organic Gardening Catalogue website for ideas:

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/

 

"plenty of room in the conservatory to get things going"

Perhaps grow some vegetables in containers?

You could start off some potatoes early in the year (1st week of Feb) e.g. using Marshall's Gro-Sacks with 3 tubers per sack. The sacks would go out during May (but would need to come back in if frost was forecast). You would have a "harvest" at the end of May.

You could also have a crack at spuds for Christmas by planting the same Gro-Sacks in August (you'll need to get seed potatoes from someone who specialises in seed potatoes which have been "conditioned" for planting at this time of the year, eg. http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/autumn-and-christmas-potatoes-c11.html

Carrots are probably the other useful crop to grow in containers. You neeed something reasonably deep, and they won't need to be int eh conservatory this time of the year, but that would hurry-them-up in the Spring.