How To Deadhead A Begonia

A begonia is among the most preferred of household flowering plants. It has an exotic bloom that adds to the aesthetic appeal of the garden. Most gardeners prefer the tuberous begonia variety. Tuberous begonias are the easiest to maintain and need little care. Begonias need basic care, a well shaded location to grow and easily drained soil. They should not be continuously exposed to dry winds. In terms of nutrition, most begonias have to be fed plant food every two weeks. However, there is one demanding feature of growing begonias — they need constant deadheading. 

Understanding Deadheading

Deadheading can be understood as the process of removing worn-off, aged flowers and foliage from the begonia plant. Deadheading is also called disbudding or de-budding. It is vital that you have a basic idea about the need for deadheading. 

• Begonias have well-defined male and female flowers. A single female flower is surrounded by two male flowers.
• By disbudding or removing the male flower, the female flower is stimulated to bloom fully.
• Deadheaded begonias bloom faster, producing a thicker, all-season foliage.
• This helps to stop the development of seedpods that can hamper the plant vigor.
• As a general practice, old flowers in begonias, male or female are constantly deadheaded.
• Lesser male flowers and lesser decaying flowers decrease the chances of the plant being infected with fungal diseases. 

Deadheading Dried Tops

• When the blooming season ends, dig-up the older-looking begonias.
• Remove all movable sources of shade to let the older plant tops dry-up.
• When the tops are dried, snip them using the garden shears.
• The snipped parts can be used for planting new begonias in another part of your garden.
• Just bury the snipped tops and tuber roots in a shaded, well-watered area along with some peat moss.

Pinching Begonias

Pinching is the process of carefully removing the growing tips of the begonia plant. This forces the plant to grow more side shoots and stimulates growth of more branches. Each tip of the begonia stem has to be patiently pinched-off. 

How To Pinch Begonias?

0. Firmly grab the begonia stem between your forefinger and your thumb.
0. Your grasp should be just below the flowerhead, i.e. just above the surrounding leaf cluster.
0. Using your fingernails, pinch the stem in one quick movement, i.e. breaking-off the stem.
0. Some gardeners follow this with trimming the plant — removing the top-half of the stem, slightly above the set of leaves. This is an option for more comprehensive pinching.
0. You should carefully pick-out the smaller begonia blooms for pinching, as they are very close to the larger blooms that shouldn't be harmed. 

Note: the growing tip is the plant’s unopened bud from where the new leaf is supposed to emerge. It should be completely removed or malformed leaves will develop. 

When To Pinch Begonias? There is no specific time for deadheading the begonia. You should start as soon as some of the new shoots start to show and you can clearly see three nodes on each plant stem. Nodes are the small joint-like structures in the stem where the leaves seem stuck to the stem. Pinching does slowdown blooming but this is a temporary effect. Eventually, it will lead to denser blooming. 

Plucking Begonias

Now that you have pinched the stems of the begonia, you might want to make the deadheading more effective, i.e. complete it with a bit of plucking. 

0. Choose some of the pinched stems for plucking, i.e. not all the stems have to be plucked.
0. Approximately two out of five begonia stems should be plucked.
0. Follow the chosen stems, right to their base.
0. Pluck or snap-off these stems with a firm downward movement.
0. You should try not to use pruners or shears for this, as they can damage the surrounding branches.