Dead Flowers at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Regularly removing dead flowers—or "deadheading"—encourages the devel opment of further buds and prolongs the display. Blooms left on plants decay and encourage the onset of diseases. Where plants have long flower-stalks, cut these back to the base. Where flowers are borne in tight clusters close to the main stem, use scissors to cut them off. Pick up all the dead flowers and place them on a compost pile. Left among the plants, they en- Deadhead plants courage diseases.

Because many of the flowers are borne on laterals on old wood these plants soon become congested if pruning is neglected, so regularly remove dead flowers and thin out twiggy clusters during summer Encourage the development of fresh shoots from ground level by cutting out old ones during winter and cut out all diseased shoots at the same time.

These are pruned during late spring of the following year If pruned immediately after their flowers fade, the young shoots that subsequently develop would be damaged by frosts during winter By leaving pruning until the following year the fresh young shoots will not be exposed to frost. First, cut out dead and diseased shoots, then those that cross the center of the shrub. At the same time, cut out thin and weak shoots. Next cut to just above a bud all those shoots that produced flowers during the previous year Pruning varies slightly according to the individual shrubs.