To pinch or not to pinch…….

Ben asked if I would write a blog about one of the deep mysteries about flower growing and that is pinching out. He gets asked lots of questions about it at this time of year, should you do it, why do you do it and when is the best time. I’m certainly not an expert, I’m always learning and experimenting but if I said that the main reason to do it is to get more flowers then that must get you interested. It is a scary thing, not least because you have grown and nurtured this delicate seedling and just as its getting into its stride (and maybe even showing those first precious flower buds) you are told to nip off part of the plant and cut it down in size. It just feels plain wrong. I’m with you on that, it just feels harsh on the poor plant and also means that you are waiting longer for some flowers.

Annuals main aim in life is to flower and set seed, that is what its destined to do, set seed for the next generation of plants. It wants to do this as quickly as possible so it just send out a single main stem, called the leading shoot, flowers and sets seed. If you cut down that main stem, it has to start again and the so called lateral buds further down the stem break and start to grow and they send out multiple stems and flower. This is what you are encouraging when you pinch out. You will get a bushier plant with multiple flower stems so more for you to cut.

But maybe its easier to explain with an example, so take Antirrhinum or the nicer name of Snapdragons, that classic cut flower, if you don’t pinch it out nothing terrible will happen it will just develop one leading stem and that will flower beautifully you will harvest that one flower and in the harvesting process you are pinching it out effectively. Then you will get side shoots and more flowers to follow. What pinching out is doing is starting that process earlier, allowing you to get a plant with multiple flower stems and a better harvest, just a few weeks later.

So when is the best time to do it, so here I’ve done it once there are at least three sets of leaves have developed. But when when they are looking a nice healthy size and are well rooted in their pots or even better can be done after planting out once they are growing well and have 3-4 sets of leaves, just showed in here in pot grown plants for ease.

Some plants really benefit from it, like Cosmos as I talked about in my previous blog.

You will get a nice bushy plant that will flower more and more. You can get them planted out and growing well in the cutting patch before pinching out and you may not do all at once, some plants are slower than others so just keeping checking and pinch them out when they are ready. So that you can be harvesting big handfuls of blooms before you know it.

If you just allow that single stem to develop the flowers are bigger, that can be an advantage if you are growing prize-winning Dahlias, but sometimes bigger is not better and the smaller flowers are often easier to arrange and look more balanced in the smaller scale arrangements that I tend to do. So this works for Ammi visnaga for example, if you let just the main flower grow then its often big and chunky but by pinching out you get the smaller flower heads that are more delicate for arrangements.

So definitely not all flowers need it, so things like the non-branching sunflowers that just have a single flower on a stem especially if you are entering the Giant sunflower competition! Some like the annual stocks just flower on a single stem and its seems there is no benefit there. But many of the other annuals do benefit from pinching out. Some plants naturally branch, like Ammi majus and Orlaya grandiflora so don’t necessarily need a main pinch out you just naturally do it when you start cutting. Some of the biennials like Sweet Rocket and Canterbury bells you can harvest the main stems and flowers and then get lots of smaller sideshoots later for cutting. But if you’d prefer smaller more manangeable flowers then pinch out earlier. Foxgloves you can let the main stem flower and then once you pick that you will get lots of sideshoots but really you just want the big main flower.

Annuals that are good to pinch out, Amaranthus, Ammi visnaga, Aster ‘Ostrich Plume’, Calendula, Cornflowers, Chrysanthemum, Cosmos, Dahlias, Lavatera, Malope, Phlox and Zinnias. Sweet peas I also tend to pinch out so that I get bushier plants. Phlox is an interesting one, its a floppy thing sending out just one leggy shoot and people often despair of it so it needs pinching out maybe a couple of times to get a good flowering plant for cutting. This can either be from pinching out or from multiple harvesting of the flowers. Its worth it though to then get lots of long stems for cutting.

We sell mainly branching sunflowers that are good for cutting and if you want it to develop branches rather than tall vertical growth you need to pinch them out when they have developed 3 leaves. Now this really can seem harsh but they will grow strong and sturdy and with lots more flowers. Please don’t worry too much if you don’t though as once you harvest the first flower you will start getting branching but maybe higher up the stem. I will try and get some photos of that this year.

Anyway hoping that has helped a bit, the best way to get going with this is to maybe just do it on some of your plants, leave the odd one so that you can see the difference. Thats the best way to learn. Its just a technique that many flower farmers used to maximise their harvests for growing and selling cut flowers.

Hope all good in your flower gardens, that reminds me I need to go and sow my sunflowers.

Happy sowing and growing

Higgledy Anne

(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)