Many people focus on removing spent flowers at the peak of summer in the hope of repeating flowering at the end of the year.
Even flowers in the earlier stages of development can benefit from a little intervention, however.
A gardening enthusiast has encouraged fellow plant owners to pinch their younger plants to encourage more flowering.
Using a method called pinching, gardeners can trigger additional branching on their younger plants which will bear more fruits and plants, thereby increasing their yield.
The hack is effective on Dahlias
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The hack recently appeared on the Instagram account of gardening enthusiast Galena Berkompas, who goes by @microflowerfarm on the platform.
She said in a caption: “Easiest trick to multiply your flowers without planting more: also called topping, pinching means you’re removing the growing point when your flowers have five to seven pairs of true leaves.
“This triggers the plant to send out more lateral stems which equals more flowers.
“If your dahlias are too tall to pinch? Cut deep into the plant when you cut the first blood and this will trigger the same thing.
“Your next flowers will just be delayed a bit longer. That’s all.”
According to Galena, the hack works on a wide range of flowers and can add swathes of colour to the garden.
“Zinnias, cosmos, strawflower, snapdragons, some celosia, phlox, Veronica, sweet peas… almost any cut-and-come-again flower will work with this," she said.
“Some flowers that it does not work with are ranunculus, tulips, daffodils, cress, pro-cut sunflowers, lilies, statice and China asters.
“There are a bunch more but the basic rule is that if they’re one cut and done or just produce one flush of flowers in a season, pinching doesn’t help.”
Experts at the Royal Horticultural Society confirm that pinching off the top shoots is beneficial to young plants.
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Ranunculus respond well to pinching
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They note that it helps stimulate the production of more side shoots “bearing lots of flowers”.
“This technique is used to get the best from summer bedding plants like fuchsias and sweet peas,” they added.
Not only does pinching boost the yield of plants, but it also prevents plants from getting too leggy.
By encouraging growth in the branches lower down on the plant, the central stem will become stronger.
