Denny's Soapbox

Keep ‘Em Blooming

Nothing affects the looks of your landscape more than the dog days of summer. It’s hot, lots of lawns are showing drought stress, and most important the color from our annuals, perennials and certain shrubs is going away. It doesn’t have to. With a little assistance from you, many of these summer bloomers can color up again and give you up to 2 more months of enjoyment by simply removing the spent or finished flowers. This practice is referred to as dead-heading. I’ll break it down by category.

Shrubs

There are several shrubs that will keep flowering if we prune off the last spent blooms. Dwarf Spirea will flush new flowers if we prune them back one-third. Butterfly Bush will continue to bloom, even heavier if we cut back the stems one-third as the flower clusters finish blooming. The new varieties of Hydrangeas ‘Endless Summer’ and ‘Big Daddy’ will continue to put on more bloom by dead-heading the spent flowers. Hypericum varieties will put on additional bloom if we prune back one-third after their initial bloom. Roses, especially Knock Out varieties will continue to increase their bloom count if you dead-head the spent flowers. In fact Knock Outs will continue to bloom well into November.

Perennials

There are some outstanding perennials for summer color. The following will re-bloom if you dead head their flowers. Cone Flowers, Black-eyed Susans, Shasta Daisies and Tall Phlox are some of the best re-bloomers. Try to dead head as soon as the current flowers finish. With perennials that don’t look good due to lack of leaves, brown leaves, or are just too big, cut all those back halfway. A hedge shear is a great tool to make this task go very quickly.

On a Special Note, repeat blooming Stella ‘D Ora Daylilies have drawn a lot of complaints from homeowners about the lack of flowers this year. In all cases I’ve observed, the daylilies in question have been planted 4 to 5 years. Stellas grow very quickly doubling in clump size every year. All daylilies need to be thinned when the clumps get full. Stellas get there quicker than other repeat bloomers. The best time to thin your daylilies is now or early spring as the new leaves start to appear. When doing now, cut all plants back to 4 inches tall. Doing this in late fall may not give the transplants enough time to re-establish before winter.

Annuals

¬The number one complaint I’ve been getting from homeowners is their dissatisfaction with their Wave and Supertunias. Their Petunias have gotten very stringy with very few leaves and blooms. To all those who have told me of this dissatisfaction and to those of you that are suffering the same results, hide the hose. Petunias love it hot and most important, very dry. Over watering causes all Petunias to stretch and be out right ugly. A lot of this over watering is caused by mixing Petunias with other annuals that like lots of water. With Petunias, they do like lots of fertilizer. If your’s are leggy, cut them back two-thirds and they should give you new color until a heavy frost. With all other annuals, start dead heading the spent flowers before they start making seeds. If you have other annuals that have gotten overgrown and leggy, take that hedge shear and cut them back halfway. They would also like some plant food.

It will not take you long to do all the above tasks and your reward will be well worth the effort. This is also a good time to take note of what grew well and what didn’t. Take these notes with you next spring as you make your 2010 buying decisions.