Mrs. F.G. is a great one for deadheading in the garden. In theory if you clip off blossoms that are fading you can encourage a second spurt of new blooms. It works well with some plants but not others. So last week the garden got its late summer haircut.
The Lavender was the most obvious target. The four plants like this one looked purple before the garden shears got to them. We'll see how much reblooming there is.
Pruning the Lavender left this strip of garden between the patio and deck looking a lot less colourful, but the orange Calendula have taken over and now look quite bright.
The large Daisies have also been trimmed; I'm waiting to see if we get a second flush of blooms.
Of course other plants have simply ended their season of blooming. These are the twisted stems of one of our fine-flowered Clematis.
Other plants like Hostas keep providing colour all summer long, even after their flowers have gone, because of their multi-coloured leaves.
I do wish we'd had more Cleome blooming; I'll hope for more next year. This one is entirely gone now.
We do have a small number of Day Lily blossoms each day, but they are tapering off rapidly too.
The Zinnias are the flower of fall, and they're coming on strong now after a failure of germination earlier. We've decided that the bright red ones are the ones we prefer.
That Day Lily is a stunner. They seem to thrive no matter the climate, a friend who was a grower here in NZ called them " Indestructible" . When it came time to divide them, her husband attacked the huge root system with a machete!!! Hope the plants have a second try at flowering.
ReplyDeleteOur garden is now speaking of fall with Rudbekia and turtlehead in bloom as the days become shorter. Hope you get a second round of blooms.
ReplyDeleteLovely shots.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Mrs. FG had a very successful garden this year!
ReplyDeleteI deadhead my daisies all through the summer and they bloom the whole summer.
ReplyDeleteLovely photos!!
Well done! I've few hostas left, but I love the deer and fawn! All that rain helped us.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how quickly plants will rebound from a trim. My petunias got a good haircut a week or so ago and you wouldn't know it today. I've never grown lavender, so I don't know about it but I wouldn't be surprised if it starts pushing blooms.
ReplyDeleteI love the zinnias and I'd already put them on the list to add to containers next year. The color is so pretty!
I have zinnia, snapdragon and gladiolus all booting along. I bring cut flowers into the house until they are all done.
ReplyDeleteI think our last daylily flower is out. Too bad, so sad.
ReplyDeleteI love zinnias and dahlias, flowers of fall. Your red zinnias are sure pretty!
ReplyDeleteIt takes a dedicated gardener to do all that dead heading and you obviously have one of those very fine people right there to do that:))
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