Most gardeners have a passing knowledge of the term “deadheading” as it pertains to roses or other flowering plants. It is the removal or the fading or dead flowers from a plant. The main reason for doing so is to keep the flowers blooming and the bushes looking clean and healthy, as well as preventing fungal infestation in the spring. These are the primary reasons we do deadheading in the Fuller Park Rose Garden. We are trying to keep the energy from the leaves and flowers from producing more new growth in the plant's cycle of life.
When our roses start to fade or just look sad, they grow seed pods called rose hips, and when they are swollen and fertilized (pollinated) they fall to the ground to reproduce copies of the parent bush in the wild. Or, they might be picked apart by birds that eat the seeds before they get anchored in the ground.
In controlled environments like our Napa gardens, we generally like to keep the beautiful flowers when they are in full bloom. In order to keep the blooms coming, we deliberately stop the life cycle by deadheading the blooms before the seed pod develops. When deadheaded, the plant will again spend energy to grow more seed pods (hips) in order to propagate themselves.
With some plants you can do the deadheading with just your fingers and thumb by pinching them off. This is an especially good technique for smaller, younger plants where you Pinch off the top growth in order to stimulate more branches. Roses, because of the thorns, should be pruned with scissors or shears. If you choose to just take off the rose blossom high on the stem, a finger pinch would work, too. With roses, use your shears and make your cut just above the next lower leaves that have five leaflets on it. If the flowers have been fairly large, you might consider going down to the second set of five leaflets. Make a clean cut just above the leaf.
When working with hybrid tea roses the above is the standard approach to deadheading. However, often you may find new “buds” coming up below the blossom. These are often disbudded (pinched off) in order to make the main blossom bigger. If you are to prune a floribunda variety of rose, often blooms are in clusters of 7-8 blossoms. Some will fade before the rest. You may just cut away the spent bloom so the others can have more space and energy to grow.
In Napa we have mild winters and roses might grow all year. In colder parts of the country rose bushes go dormant. In Fuller Park, we have an aggressive protocol in January where we can reduce the bushes heights as much as two thirds of their normal size. In essence, we are forcing dormancy by doing this, that will lead to wonderful blooms by May.
There will be a ZOOM course open to the public during the first week of January, followed by a hands-on class at the Fuller Park Rose Garden the following week. Watch the Master Gardener website ( https://napamg.ucanr.edu/ ) for more details if you wish to participate.
Remember: Toss plant debris into your city compost bin and NOT your own compost pile. The Napa City compost center produces high temperatures that destroy harmful spores while your backyard compost pile is unable to do so.
(Photo Credits Bob Niklewicz)
If you have questions about the Fuller Park Rose Garden and the Master Gardeners who maintain the Rose Garden, we are usually in the Garden the first Sunday and third Thursday of each month between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., weather permitting, February through November. Thank you for your interest in the Fuller Park Rose Garden. See you there.
Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143. Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.
Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.