Clipping & Snipping

(helping your plants look their best)

Flowering Annuals

Snipping for Shape

If you want your flowering annuals (like zinnias, vincas, petunias, and salvias, for example) to REALLY put on a good show, you’re going to want to behead your young plants.  What does this mean?  It’s simply cutting off the newest growth, including buds of flowers, when the plant is beginning its growth in the spring.

The reason for this is that when you cut off a growing tip, the plant sends growth hormone (called auxin) to create new stems or branches for flowering.  The plant wants to flower and seed (reproduce), so if you cut off the buds before it gets a chance, it will try again.  The result is that you end up with many more stems and branches to put out flowers than if you didn’t snip.

If growing from seed, you want to wait until the plant has at least a few good sets of leaves before trimming, however.   For example, when growing zinnias from seed, I always snip off the tops of the seedlings as soon as they have 4 full sets of leaves (I leave 3 pairs behind).  The zinnia plant will send 2 branches out from where I snipped off the one.  I do this repeatedly, snipping off the tips of each flowering stem, for about 3 to 4 weeks.  By the beginning of summer, instead of having a tall skinny plant with a single bloom point at the top, I will have a multi-branched plant with a fuller shape and multiple tips which will form flower buds.

When buying young plants at the nursery, I do the same snipping as soon as I get them, unless I can see that the growers have already done a good trimming job and the plant shows generous branching.

*Note – whenever you snip, make sure you snip just above a leaf node (a node is where the leaves or new branching grow out of the  stem).

Most Perennials Do Not Need Snipping

While some perennials MAY benefit from early snipping, most don’t really need it because they send flowering stalks up from the base (or rosette) of the plant.  And those that have a limited bloom period and send up a set number of bloom stalks should definitely NOT be snipped, as snipping can result in having no flowers at all.  Some perennials that should be left alone are:

• Agapanthus
• Cannas
• Daylilies
• Dianthus/ Carnations
• Lilies (all types)
• Gladiolus
• Crinums
• Irises
• Daffodils

And there are others.  Before commencing the spring flower chop, do a little research on your particular plant.  If it’s a plant that only blooms once for a specific period, don’t remove the blooms.

Deadheading, however, is a good idea for all perennials and annuals.

Deadheading 

Deadheading is the removal of dead, spent flower blooms.  Throughout the growing season, after a flower is done blooming, it will put its energy into converting the flower head into seed production, which means it puts less energy into making new blooms.  Removing spent blooms prompts the plant to put out new blooms now that there’s no seed-creation spot.

I let the dead flowerheads simply lay where they fall, which is a form of “chop and drop” composting-in-place, and if the flower has already formed seeds in the flowerhead, those seeds may germinate next year (these self-seeded flowers that pop up next year are typically called “volunteers”).  This is an easy way to increase your flowering plants for free.  All you’ll have to do next year is thin out the plantings by pulling out the extras and letting the volunteers grow in place.

I usually go through the garden once a week and do deadheading, but I don’t obsess about it– most plants look fine with just occasional deadheading.

This goldfinch is glad for these seeds

Grasses

Evergreen grasses retain their green foliage all year, but most grasses are perennials that put up new blades from their roots each spring.

In the spring and summer they grow up and out.  In the later summer and fall they form attractive seed heads that sway beautifully in the breeze.  In the winter they retain their seed heads and feed native birds and wildlife, as well as provide winter cover for many species.

For these reasons, the time to cut your grasses is early spring, after winter is over and just when you begin to notice new growth starting to emerge at the base.

Cut the entire grass clump down to about a foot high for larger grasses like fountain grass and pampas, or 6 inches for smaller grass clumps, like sedges or gulf coast muhly.

Most grass blades are pretty tough, so you’ll want hedge trimmers if possible.

Shrubs

The most important rule for pruning shrubs is that you don’t want to do more than shape it up a bit and remove dead, damaged or rubbing branches.  You’re not trying to hack it to bits, just keep it healthy and shapely.

About size— You don’t want to try to keep a shrub that wants to be 12 feet tall and wide down to 5 feet every year.  Not only is it exhausting and a waste of your time and energy, but it doesn’t lead to attractive and healthy shrubs.  Landscapers are notorious for planting little shrubs that will someday be humongous shrubs right next to the house and in front of windows.  After all, they won’t be there to deal with the consquences…  So when planning and planting, do your research and make sure you select shrubs that will fit in their assigned spaces after they’ve fully matured.  That way you can enjoy your garden without fighting with your bushes and doing a bunch of unnecessary work trying to keep them small.

Bloom Season — Another important thing about shrubs is that it’s critical to know whether they bloom on old wood (growth that happened last year or earlier), or on new growth (that grows this spring and summer).

For shrubs that bloom on old growth, you don’t want to prune off any branches until AFTER the shrub has completed its bloom cycle for the season.

For shrubs that bloom on new growth, you want to prune and shape the shrub at the end of winter and then leave it be so that it can put on new growth and bloom on it.

Every spring, check all of your shrubs for dead wood, broken limbs, and damage or disease.  These things should be trimmed off before the active summer growing season.

This poor crape myrtle has been totally disfigured after multiple years of chopping, aka “crape murder.”

Trees

Just like shrubs, trees end up becoming a garden battleground simply because somebody planted them too close to the house, driveway, or power lines.  Again, please research your trees before planting them to find out how wide they will eventually be so that you can avoid having to constantly cut branches away from your home.  If you have the option, you may be able to have professional tree movers come and move a tree that’s imposing on structures.

As for trimming, trees are so easy to butcher and ruin that you really want to take the time to specifically research the tree you want to trim and find out the best technique for that particular type of tree.  If you can at all afford it, hire a certified arborist to protect your biggest (and most expensive to replace ) living landscape investment.

And if you have crape myrtles, please, please don’t commit crape murder — the practice of “topping,” or chopping off all the branches each spring.  This horrendous practice leads to weak branches, stunted growth, knobby knuckles, and weird lollipop looking trees.  Do an internet search for “crape murder” to read more about why this is a terrible practice and see images of what to avoid.

Pruning correctly makes all the difference in how your garden looks and even more for the health of your plants.  It’s definitely worth the time to research your plants and give them the right kind of trimming so that both the plants and you can be happy.