Keeping Annuals Beautiful All Season

A little extra attention will keep your annuals looking vibrant from spring through fall.

Pinching for Bushier Growth

While many modern annuals are bred to be naturally compact, some—like petunias and geraniums (Pelargonium)—benefit from pinching. Simply nip off the stem tips with your thumb and forefinger. This encourages side branching, resulting in a denser, more compact plant.

Staking Tall Varieties

A few towering annuals, such as sunflowers (Helianthus), may need support to prevent flopping. Drive a single stake into the ground and secure the stem with plastic tape or soft twine, or surround the plant with a cylinder of wire fencing.

Deadheading for Continuous Blooms

As flowers fade, annuals shift energy into seed production. Regularly removing spent blossoms and any seedpods—a practice called deadheading—prompts the plant to produce more flowers in its effort to set seed. Deadheading also keeps the garden looking tidy.

Large-flowered annuals like zinnias are easy to deadhead: just pinch or cut the flower back to the next branch. For smaller-flowered plants such as floss flower (Ageratum), shearing off the flower heads with pruning or hedge shears is faster. Avoid cutting back more than a third of the plant at once.