Proper pruning and deadheading

Now is the time of the year to prune and deadhead all of your plants. Every week or so, remove faded flowers from perennials and some annuals.  Not only will this make the garden look better with dead flowers removed, it also helps because many flowers will stop blooming if the plants set seeds. Some plants replace flowers with really attractive seed heads, but others scatter their seeds all over the garden, much like a dandelions do. You often wind up with dozens of baby flowers that you have to pull out to avoid ending up with a hundred daisies in one square foot of garden soil. Cutting off flowers before they form seeds prevents this maintenance headache. To deadhead, simply cut the dead flower off using scissors for lightweight stems or pruning shears for heavy and thick ones. Cut the stem below the flower at the first leaves or flower bud you come to.