Best Deadheading Tools

For smaller, more flexible plants, you can pinch off blooms with your fingers. For a larger plant or group, you’ll want some tools. Bypass (scissor-style) blades are best for a healthy cut that leaves the stem intact. Anvil pruners can crush the stem.

Hand snips can handle thin, soft-stemmed foliage, like petunias and coreopsis. Hand pruners are best for sturdier, tougher stalks. Lastly, shearing—useful for certain plants listed below—calls for hand pruners or shears to cut back all the foliage at once, prompting new stem growth and eventually flowers.

Always make your deadheading cut above a leaf, leaving some significant foliage underneath for best results.

Cut-and-Come-Again Plants

Plants that respond to deadheading by producing more flowers are called “cut-and-come-again.” The more you snip, the more they bloom, until their internal clock or weather tells them to stop. Some flowers in this category are annuals such as:

Among shrubs, repeat-blooming roses and butterfly bush (Buddleia) will pump out more flowers the more you cut. Repeat-blooming hydrangeas like the ‘Endless Summer’ series bloom on old and new wood, so they can also be encouraged this way.

Delay Dormancy with Deadheading

Certain plants seem like they can’t wait to go to seed. But once that happens, they go dormant and stop all flower production. For these, watching for forming seedheads to prune is a helpful ritual you can do while watering.

This category includes calendula, bachelor’s buttons, sweet peas, and flowering tobacco (Nicotiana spp.). Basil and coleus are special cases. Try to catch the flowers as they are forming so these plants will continue focusing on leaf production.

Shear for an Encore

Cutting back catmint (Nepeta spp.), wallflower (Erysimum spp.), perennial salvias like S. nemerosa, perennial coreopsis, and hardy geraniums at the right time can repay your efforts with a second flush of blooms. This works best when the plant is healthy and just finishing its first round of flowers. If a plant is severely stressed from heat or pest damage, shearing will be too stressful and you’re unlikely to get more flowers.

You can cut back by one-third to one-half of the plant’s current size. If stems have become woody at the base, cut above that older growth rather than into it.

Additional Deadheading Benefit

Regular deadheading has a side benefit: time spent close to your plants tends to catch pest and disease problems before they spread. Sometimes you can literally nip these issues in the bud when you catch them early enough.

While not all plants need or benefit from deadheading, the ones mentioned here will pay you back tenfold, making the rest of summer more beautiful to enjoy.