How to Deadhead Foxglove

Deadheading or pinching back spent blossoms is a simple and effective pruning technique. By deadheading, you encourage both perennial and annual flowers to put forth continued blossoms throughout the growing season, as they are not expending energy on producing seed. Foxglove plants, growing energetically to fill in shady garden areas, blooms with tall spires of pink and yellow flowers in the first part of the summer. Foxglove may respond to deadheading by blooming again later in the season.

Pruning shears
Bucket

Instructions

- 1
  Watch the foxglove blossoms as they begin to die back in early to mid summer.
- 2
  Clip off the spent blossoms with the pruning shears or pinch them off with your thumb and forefinger. Remove the blossoms at the point of the first set of leaves on the stems.
- 3
  Discard the blossoms into the bucket as you remove them. Throw away the blossoms in the bucket in a compost pile or in the trash. Never leave clipped blossoms on the soil beneath plants because this can lead to fungal infections.
- 4
  Watch for a second bloom. Because you clipped the blossoms off at the leaf intersection, new stem growth may occur with new blossoms.
- 5
  Allow the second bloom to wither and go to seed on the plants, if you wish to propagate volunteer plants for the next growing season.

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