Happy Birthday Kelly (klstuart)!
Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #38
Oh goody! Another birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope it a great one!!!!!!!!! : )
Happy Birthday Kelly! This is a beautiful time of the year for a Birthday :)
Happy Birthday Kelly!
Well, I made it back folks - and after leaving the gardens unattended for six weeks during the summer . . . . Have any of you seen the documentary series based on what the world would be like if humans suddenly disappeared - well, I got proof that Mother Nature does just fine without us. Weeds as high as my shoulders, and all my flowers gone to seed, and more varieties of beetles and bugs than I can imagine.
I figure it is going to take a few weeks to clean up this mess!
Meanwhile, I have a bumper crop of seeds since none of the plants were deadheaded.
Does anyone know if letting the plants go to seed actually weakens them?
I don't think allowing them to go to seed weakens them, but for some plants it sends a signal that it has completed its life cycle (with some annuals that is). Some perennials will rebloom if dead headed, but aren't really weakened by going through their natural process of seed production.
Hi Seandor - good to hear from you! How is your little granddaughter? I am guessing wonderful! I'm sure your garden will be wonderful still. I don't think letting them go to seed weakens them. I do remember that Dafs, Lilium and other types of bulbous plants will benefit from being deadheaded, because it allows them to store the energy that they would put into forming seeds back down into the bulb. But I have missed deadheading them before and they still do fine the next year, maybe the flowers aren't as large as they would be if they'd been deadheaded, but still nice all the same. : )
Welcome back Seandor!
Surely it wouldn't weaken your plants per say but it would make them die back sooner or quit blooming anyway. I've let a lot of mine go this year for reasons that you all know and am surprised that some of them are still blooming! Usually I'm collecting the seeds off of them all year so that is a somewhat deadheading isn't it lol This is the first year I actually have been trying to deadhead without collecting on some plants (first time ever) that I can get to and can see such a difference!
Three of my plants for example that I usually try and let go to seed to collect I have deadheaded before they went to seed and one is my Trollius ichinensis ‘Golden Queen’ and it’s starting to bloom again never has done that before. The other one is my Salpiglossis ‘Kew Blue’ usually it is gone by this time of year here wanting the seeds so bad but I have kept it deadheaded and it’s still going not as beautiful as it was at first but I am getting more blooms instead of the dead plant :) I did get to deadhead my ‘Bluet Mountain Cornflower’ Centaurea Montana too and it’s still blooming that is a first for me too. Well it did go to seed once that was around the time of dad’s funeral but I went out there afterwards and cut all the seeds off of it and it’s still blooming now :)
I’m finding out this year that it is a good thing to deadhead lol I just hate missing out on all of those seeds LOL
Happy Birthday Kelly!!!!
Wishing belated birthdays (and hoping every day since your birthdays has been just as celebratory) to Robin, SingingWolf, RatherBDigging, Lynn and Kelly. May all your milk jugs be full come next April and planted by the September after that - maybe we should send Birthday Elves around to do the magic? I can just imagine them riding in on little piggies - lol
karen
getting kinda long for slow dial-ups - how 'bout a new thread?
I haven't raised any from seed but how about a cutting? We can do that.
I could give it a try this year.
Vitex is the same as a "chaste tree" with the blue blooms. Mine is fairly
tall.I have pruned it back once when I first got it. It is a pretty little
shrub.
Yep, I agree. Somebody wanan do the honors of the new thread. I can't open to window s at once anymore , so hard for me to do it.
Once new thread up, wil tell ya something.
All righty - saddle up your flying piggies - and swoop down over here - http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1033667/
heehee - oughta do this when Halloween comes around
karen