Food-Gardening Lessons From A Wartime Victory Garden

Bedding Flower Trickery: Tips For Making More Blooms

Bedding Flower Trickery: Tips For Making More Blooms - Maureen Gilmer
Your annual bedding plants have a short life cycle. Seed formation is the mechanism that tells them to stop making more blooms. To keep the marigolds, petunias, zinnias and other summer flowers reblooming, inspect them daily. Immediately nip off every flower past its prime. Cut others in bud or bloom to bring indoors. Do this religiously and your annuals will think it’s still June all summer long. Tricking them to flower longer by preventing seed means they’ll need more flower food during the hot months. Generously work in fertilizer every few weeks and keep them well watered for big color lasting well into fall.

About Maureen Gilmer

Maureen Gilmer is celebrating her 40th year in California horticulture and photojournalism as the most widely published professional in the state. She is the author of 21 books on gardening, design and the environment, is a widely published photographer, and syndicated with Tribune Content Agency. She is the weekly horticultural columnist for the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs and contributes to Desert Magazine, specializing on arid zone plants and practices for a changing climate. She works and lives in the remote high desert for firsthand observations of native species. Her latest book is The Colorful Dry Garden published by Sasquatch Books. When not writing or photographing she is out exploring the desert on her Arabian horse. She lives in Morongo Valley with her husband Jim and two rescue pit bulls. When not writing or photographing she is usually out riding her quarter horse.

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