The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight. Fiona has worked in horticulture for more than 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. This month, Fiona’s been dead-heading her plants; she also shares her top tips for what we should be doing in our gardens this July. 

I love the therapeutic effect of dead-heading and would happily spend hours doing it if I could. I especially love dead-heading sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus), which were one of the first flowers I dead-headed as a child with my great aunt hovering over me, concerned that I wouldn’t do it correctly. Those plants were her pride and joy!

But, is it really worth while spending all that time dead-heading the plants in your garden, and does it need to be done for every plant?

In a nutshell, dead-heading is removing flowers from plants when they are fading or dead. There are a few reasons why this is worthwhile:

• It keeps plants looking good and can encourage more flowers. Sweet peas are a great example of this as they soon set seed and die if you don’t take the old flowers off.
• Dead-heading regularly helps to encourage stronger growth. Once flowers are pollinated, seeds start to form, taking the energy away from more flowers being produced.
• It also helps to avoid petals flying all over the place, making it easier to keep things tidy.
• Dead-heading can also avoid excessive seeding with plants such as lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis), sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata) and angelica, which are all likely candidates for having their flowers removed before seed is set. Unless, of course, you want the extra plants!

Violas and chives

There are many plants that are worth dead-heading, with bedding plants in containers and hanging baskets being the first contenders. Pelargoniums, petunias, pansies, polyanthus, violas and cosmos all benefit from dead-heading. Shrub wise, if you have time, it is well worth dead-heading rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias. Bulbs such as narcissus (daffodils) and tulips also benefit from dead-heading as the plant then directs any energy made back into the main bulb for flowering next year.

Fading or dead flowers can be removed quickly by hand and most will snap off cleanly when gently bent back. But if the flower stalks are tough or stringy, use scissors or secateurs to ensure a clean cut and to avoid damaging any developing buds underneath.

Plants such as dahlias, calendulas, marigolds and sweet peas are generally better cut with secateurs. Fading rose flowers can be snapped off just below the head rather down to the first set of leaves; this can actually help produce more flower buds more quickly on repeat flowering cultivars.

‘Tess of the D’urbervilles’ rose

But before you march out into the garden brandishing your secateurs, you don’t have to dead-head everything. Plants such as fuchsia, bedding lobelia and salvias will either dead-head themselves or don’t tend to produce a lot of seed so will keep repeat flowering. It’s also worthwhile finding out which flowers are good for wildlife. If you leave sunflower heads, the seeds will encourage birds into your garden. There are some cultivars of roses that produce beautiful hips and so are worth keeping for interest through the winter. Lastly, hydrangea flowers are actually best left until spring to protect the developing bud underneath.

If you have never dead-headed before, give it a go and hopefully you’ll find it as therapeutic as I do. Happy snipping!

Dahlias

Five Top Tips for July

• Dead-head fading and dead flowers to keep your containers and hanging baskets looking good.
• Take the side shoots off and tie in your cordon tomatoes to keep them tidy and to ensure the energy goes into flower and fruit formation.
• Liquid feed container plants at least once a week to keep them growing and flowering well.
• Sow biennial plants such as sweet william, foxgloves, honesty and forget-me-nots now for flowering next year.
• Summer prune wisteria at the end of the month and into August. Prune back the young whippy growths to five or six buds to help allow better flower bud formation for next year.

If you want to hear more about the Rudding Park Kitchen Garden, I recommend subscribing to the Rudding Park Podcast. It provides a fascinating and entertaining insight into stories from Rudding Park and I recently joined host Peter Banks for whether the chat focuses on gardens, golf and gin – a great combination!

Enjoy!

Read More: 

• Stray Gardener: Flavourful edible flowers
• Stray Gardener: Cool Cucurbits

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight.

Fiona has worked in horticulture for over 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. 

At this time of year, when the garden has started to go to sleep and bare branches start to appear, there is a group of plants which keep doing their thing and provide much needed colour and structure during the dark, dismal days of winter. Enter – the evergreens..

Why not spend some time this winter admiring the many evergreens around, and possibly plan to add some more to your garden.

Not only do they have winter colour and are a useful foil to help other plants stand out more, they can provide good shelter and protection all the year round, not only for the garden, but also for wildlife. Evergreens can provide brilliant cover for nesting birds, and their leaf litter on the floor is a perfect home for hibernating animals such as hedgehogs. Many plants provide berries for birds and small mammals such as wood mice and dormice. Most are also very useful for cutting to use in flower arrangements, wreaths and garlands.

A Yew Pedestal at Rudding Park’s Follifoot Wing

Amongst my favourites are Yew (Taxus baccata) and Holly (Ilex aquifolium), not only are they lovely trees in their own right, they are a great choice for hedges and topiary, and are a reliable choice in any garden. Holly has the added advantage of having many different cultivars, variegated and green to add extra interest. They are also very easy to re-shape and prune back hard if they start to get a little out of control. Hollies are dioecious, meaning they need a male and female to produce berries, so that may be something to keep in mind if berries are your thing..

A Monkey Puzzle Tree

For evergreen shrubs to use on walls, you can’t beat Ivy. It does need to be monitored regularly, and is probably not the best option for an unstable wall with loose mortar, but it is fantastic for wildlife, being a great place for birds’ nests. I’ve even seen ducks nesting at the base of an Ivy plant and it also provides a late nectar source for pollinating insects. There are many different cultivars to choose from with large and small leaves and various different colour combinations.

For something a little more exotic looking, try Pittosporum, Myrtle, Mahonia japonica or the Monkey Puzzle tree. Pittosporum are a lovely range of plants with different coloured and textured leaves that can be used in containers and in the border, ranging from small rounded shrubs to small trees. Myrtle (Myrtus communis or Myrtus luma) having beautiful, small, fragrant leaves and small white flowers is extremely attractive to pollinating insects making the whole bush hum with activity in the summer. Mahonia x media cultivars is a winter flowering shrub with large spiky leaves and large yellow flowers that appear in December and January. They positively glow in the winter gloom and have the most amazing fragrance, reminiscent of lily of the valley.  The monkey puzzle tree or Araucaria araucana needs no introduction, it’s a wonderful structural tree that stands out, especially in the winter months, just make sure you have room for it, but if you do, what an addition to your garden!

There are many more evergreen plants to consider, so when you get out for some fresh air over the Christmas period, why not pay a little more attention to the evergreen shrubs and trees that play such an important part in our environment, be it wild or cultivated. Enjoy!

Read More: 

• The Stray Gardener: Planting tulips for spring colour pops
• Harrogate school boosts environment by planting 500 trees