Deadheading A Dahlia

Encouraging new blooms on your decorative outdoor flowers such as your dahlia, marigold and petunia plants is most easily done by a process known as deadheading. Deadheading is the name for removing the petals and seeds of a flower as soon as it fades. When you do this, you will find that your flowers continue to bloom throughout the entire growing season. In fact, on flowers that are not deadheaded, the blooming won’t continue after one instance. That is because leaving the dying flowers on the plant prevents it from continuing to produce new flowers. Deadheading your dahlia conserves its energy for the replenishment of beauty that it would otherwise spend on making seeds.

When to Deadhead

Deadheading should be done as soon as you see pollen appearing on the plant. When you deadhead a dahlia, new blooms are encouraged because the plant does not spend its energy producing seeds. Not to waste the cut dahlia, bring it indoors and make an attractive flower display. When you trim a fading dahlia always cut it at the node below the bloom in order to encourage further blooms.

Deadheading vs. Pinching Back

The difference between deadheading and pinching back is that you pinch a flower back before it blooms while deadheading occurs after the flower has bloomed. Both are necessary pruning techniques to encourage the best possible growth from your outdoor flower garden.

Benefits of Deadheading

In addition to encouraging new blooms deadheading helps to keep your dahlias healthy. If your region is experiencing a dry spell, deadheading the dahlias is a good way to keep them safe from the excessive heat and lack of rainfall. Deadheading also maintains the general pleasant appearance of your garden. There is little that is more unsightly than an overgrown garden of fading flowers. Deadheading dahlias–and other flowers–tells onlookers that you take pride in your garden and see to it that it does not go unattended. 

Other Pruning Techniques

Another pruning technique common with dahlias is disbudding. Disbudding involves isolating the main bud by removing auxiliary buds that form as offshoots of the principal one. It is the main bud that will bloom into the beautiful flower, so it is best to save the flower’s energy for what has the best chance of blooming.

In order to encourage a continual appearance of new blooms, to protect the vulnerable flowers from a dry spell or heat wave and to keep up the overall appearance of your flower garden, deadheading your dahlias–among other pruning techniques–is both advisable and necessary. Deadheading is the process of removing the fading flowers from the plant as soon as pollen begins to appear on it. This saves the energy the plant would otherwise use for seed creation. It is sort of like birth control for a dahlia or other plant. Promptly deadheading the fading blooms ensures that the plant will bloom continually through the warm season, maintaining the beauty of your garden throughout the summer and into the early autumn.