By joenesgarden, 7 months and 26 days ago

Keep gardens neat looking with deadheading

As a garden coach and personal gardener most of my springtime gardening work is done in clients' gardens. Gardening at home happens in tidbits of time. Fortunately, I only need tidbits of time to keep up with deadheading. Many clients and gardening friends have questions about deadheading – gardeners' term for removing of spent flowers. But careful attention to how a perennial flowers offers clues to how to deadhead. You don't want to cut down all green growth since perennials use the greenery to produce energy to survive. But unless you plan to harvest seeds from a specific perennial, allowing it to go to seed is simply taxing the plant's energy for no good gardening reason. So I expend a fair portion of my home gardening time removing spent blossoms. Beside ensuring perennials don't waste good energy on seed production, deadheading keeps the gardens looking fresh and allows currently blooming flowers to take center stage.

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By joenesgarden, 1 year and 7 months ago

June Blooms

Cool days and nights and overcast skies marked the first half of June in south central Connecticut. Nearly daily rain of some amount interspersed with heavy downpours and strong thunderstorms kept soils consistently wet. Pansies, loving the cool temperatures, still bloom. Ferns and mosses thrive in the nearly constant moisture. The peonies were glorious, but short-lived – just as the biggest blossoms opened wide rains pelted them down. The last of my peony blossoms will go by this week, but later blooming iris are coming on strong along with many other happy blossoms to show on Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, June 2010.

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By joenesgarden, 2 years and 7 months ago

June Bloom Day

It's been chilly, rainy, and cloudy, but flowers brighten the days.

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