In my last post, I showed you how I planted my geranium and petunia planter (Geranium and Petunia Planter). Aside from watering and fertilizing as needed, there’s a little bit more maintenance to do to keep the plants bushy and pretty. Basically you need to pinch off the dying flowers before they turn to seed. This keeps the plant putting its effort into making more flowers instead of focussing on going to seed.
Every few days, check and look for dead or dying flower stalks.
Not only are they ugly, they are sucking plant energy into finishing seed production rather than into flower production.
Pinch down low, where the stem meets the plant and pull downward. The flower stalk will break right off. If this seems tricky, or you’re not getting a clean break, you can use clippers.
Now it looks prettier and there’s lots of new buds ready to burst forth.
Now for the petunias… These are the old fashioned types, so you need to pull off all the dead and dying flowers to keep the flowers blooming all season. Be sure to not just remove the petals, but pinch back to the base of the flower, or to just above the first leaf below the flower. Otherwise, you’ve left the seed pod to mature.
Some of the new hybrids either don’t need dead heading at all, or the dead flowers just drop off with a breeze or a shake. Very convenient!
Don’t forget your hanging geraniums either! They need the same attention.
