Deadheading Perennials

This week I’ve been busy deadheading my perennials that bloomed early in the season. I don’t deadhead all of my plants, just specific ones that I know will bloom again, like catmint, ‘Stella de Oro’ lillies, sage and salvia. I also deadhead my daylillies as they’re blooming to keep them blooming longer.

Other plants I cut off the seed heads because they’re rather aggressive reseeders and I don’t want them taking over my flowerbeds. These include: chives, balloon flowers, wild geraniums and a few others.

I only deadhead plants until about the end of July, after that I leave them be (except for seed heads of invasives) so that they can store up energy for overwintering. Some plants get sheared off completely (catmint & lillies), others just get the dead flower heads cut off of them to tidy them up a big (sages, daylillies and balloon flowers).

I didn’t always deadhead, but I started to have trouble with some aggressive plants taking over and nudging out some of the plants that I wanted, so I started deadheading. I also like how it cleans up the garden and gets rid of the some of the brown, it just makes everything look a little nicer. Surprisingly it’s a garden chore that really doesn’t take that long, and it provides some compost fodder, so it does have it’s rewards.

Do you deadhead your plants or do you let nature run it’s course?

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Garden Quote: Claude Monet

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
— Claude Monet

I too love flowers, I’ll never have strictly edibles in my garden. I’ll always have some peonies, siberian irises, zinnias, hollyhocks, foxgloves, hydrangeas, and other beautiful blooms in my gardens.

What’s your favorite blooming plant?

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Parched

It’s been a dry May here in Ohio. Usually we have a fairly wet spring and we only get dry spells in late July & August. I emptied my rain barrels last week sometime and have been hoping for rain. I guess I should install a few more rain barrels.

I’ve been keeping track of how much water I’m able to save with my rain barrels. So far this spring I’ve been able to harvest and use 690 gallons of water from my rain barrels.

I finally had to resort to using the hose to water my raised beds, I really didn’t want my strawberry crop to suffer. So out came the hose and I spent hours watering everything thoroughly.

I love these little hose guides, I got them a long time ago to keep the hose from trampling my plants. I need to get a few more though, I suppose a big rock would do, but how cute is this little frog looking up from the garden.

We got a small shower yesterday, but it amounted to less than an 8th of an inch of rain. It was only enough to get everything wet and droopy and make the day humid.

Even with that small amount of rain, I captured 21 gallons of water, that will be enough to water all of my potted plants.

We do have a 60% chance of thunderstorms today, hopefully we’ll get some rain, at least enough to fill up my rain barrels. I’m not holding my breath though, everyone around us got tons of rain yesterday and we got nothing.

Anyone else’s garden parched or are you having the opposite problem?

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What’s in Your Pantry?

Yesterday my pantry was featured on Perfect Pantry. Head on over there and take a peek into my pantry.

I’d love to start a weekly series like this here, only I’d feature gardens each week, what do you think? Would you like to take a peek into other people’s gardens?

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Parade of Tulips

The tulips are in full bloom here at Chiot’s Run, well at least the ones the deer didn’t get to.

I really like tulips, my favorite ones are Shirley Tulips and Negrita Tulips. I have a few other colors, but purple, white and pale yellow are my favorite colors as far as tulips go.


I’m not a huge fan of primary colors in the garden, not sure why, they just seem too harsh for me. I do have some red and yellow tulips in the gardens, they were labeled ‘Mickey Mouse’ tulips when I bought them.

Here in Ohio tulips aren’t always perennials. They come back occationally but they’re usually fewer in number and smaller. So each fall I plant a few bulbs so I have a good spring showing (although last fall I didn’t plant any so I don’t have very many tulips this spring). This coming fall I’m thinking about buying some heirloom bulbs to plant, they’re supposed to come back each year.

What’s your favorite color of tulip (or specific cultivar)?

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