Deadhead or no?
You are free to do whatever you like in your garden. However, in strata maintenance work there is often a big push towards neatness. And that requires quick clean-ups, perennial cutback and flower deadheading. Here’s how deeply ingrained it is: I walked into a home gardener’s backyard and I immediately wanted to remove the spent Hosta and flush cut the still standing Astilbe. But since we don’t maintain this backyard I let it go. It’s ok to leave things be until it warms up in spring. The homeowner knows what to do and she’ll take care of it on her schedule. We have tons of other work on site. But still, I was tempted…..
Winter drama
Then today I took a walk through a snowy park and discovered a hydrangea covered in snow. With snow on top, the flower head adds some drama to the landscape. If it had been deadheaded earlier, I wouldn’t have noticed the shrub at all.
So there you go, you can delay deadheading and cutback until spring. As much as I hate snow, I do enjoy seeing a snowy hydrangea flower. It adds some drama to the winter landscape. And this applies to other plants like ornamental grasses and Pennisetums. They all look fine covered in frost.
Christopher Lloyd
The late Christopher Lloyd was a famous English gardener and like a newbie, I opened his book expecting hard rules. But he surprised me when he said that in his garden he prunes when gets around to it! New gardeners expect hard rules: for example, prune this by February 28.
The better gardener you become, the more relaxed you are; and you’re more likely to brake ‘rules’. The same applies to deadheading and cutback. Delaying some of this work allows birds to eat seeds out of seed heads and hydrangeas can get covered in frost, thereby adding drama to the landscape.
Deadhead or no? Your choice!
