I think on a long stemmed plant like pin cushion, I would remove some of the stem. In a flower like that, you can see that another flower will not emerge from the same stem and the stem will just sit there so why not remove it. The same is true for my Coreopsis 'Nana'. However, there are some flowers that put out multiple flowers per stem (daylily is an example although I do remove the stem when the last flower on that scape as bloomed). For those kinds of plants, just pinch the flower off.

Hope that helps. And I didn't laugh at all.

Good question, actually. Don't you just hate it when the answer is, "It depends."?

I pinch off just the blossom on things like daffodils. I pull the florets off a hyacinth bloom so they don't set seed, but I leave the stem, as I read (don't know if it's true) that the green stem also makes chlorophyll as the leaves do. Lilies, you need to leave the whole stem with leaves to make food for next year's bloom. Just nip off faded blooms.

On perennials and annuals, it also depends. Some stems I cut all the way back to the foliage, like the bare stem of a Gerbera daisy. On stokesia and zinnias, I cut back to just above the first joint, at which point a new stem will form and you'll get another bloom.

If you're not sure, just nip off the bloom head and watch for a few days. Sometimes the bare stem will die back to the point where the plant would prefer that you cut.

Spiderwort, the plant keeps adding more blooms daily but require no deadheading daily. When they finally slow down, midsummer, I cut the whole stalk back to the ground and the plant puts up a new stalk. I deadhead daylilies daily because I hate the look of yesterday's 'soggy socks' hanging off the stem with next day's bloom and buds.

Roses, there used to be this iron-clad rule that you cut back to just above a 5-leaflet at a certain angle. Lately, some experts decided that deadheading just the bloom makes a faster rebloom.

Some things, like melampodium, do not require deadheading, they drop seed and the old blossom just falls off.
Nell

esh and foxesearth -- Thank you. (OK, you are welcome to chuckle a little bit now.) :) Those are good answers.

I am OK with reading that it is different for different flowers. That actually makes sense to me AND makes me feel less dumb that I was doing it differently each time too (although not necessarily correctly).

I can see where it makes sense to cut off the whole stem if no other bloom will appear on that stem. So, I'll be out in my garden deadheading (stem and all) my Butterfly Blue pincushion flowers this afternoon!

Thanks again!

No such thing as a dumb question!

I'm very new to flower garden and have just planted a bunch of perennials in my back bed, lillies, crocus, hycinth(sp?), etc. My questions is way more elementary,,
what is dead heading and when and how do you do it?

thanks/

Bob

Deadheading is removing flowers that have already bloomed. This can actually increase the flower production of the plant and it looks more tidy.

Here's a chart I found doing a google search for "deadheading plants". Might help.
http://www.orchardsedge.com/article.jsp?article=deadingguidelines.jsp

And two others that were posted here years ago.
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/ajc/pdf/deadsun.pdf
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/ajc/pdf/deadshade.pdf

~Michelle