Hi there,
I have quite a few annuals I planted out which i bought as seedlings from SR.
I just realized that I should be pinching them! Some of them have produced some flowerheads. It is it still ok to pinch to the top growth out? ..
How far should i pinch them out?..
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Just for a little moment when you said "pinching" you were thinking about stealing them. Sorry!
'You must have some bread with it me duck!'
Depends if you need short bushy plants or not. I leave my cosmos alone, leaving them to grow as tall as they want (which is what I also want- tall bushy plants). They flower like crazy, and keep flowering as long as you keep up with the dead heading (cut the flower stem down to the nearest set of leaves).
It won't do any harm to pinch out now, even those with flower heads, aside from delaying the flowering by a few weeks. Do you have space for an experiment? Leave those with flower heads alone and pinch back the others by a few inches, and see how they each turn out.
Where's Verdun when you need him? He recommends pinching cosmos loads to make them bushier. I think they flower later though?
I always forget to pinch mine and they end up like small trees here
Some are dwarf varieties I think, don't know if that makes a difference?
In my experience, you get a lot more flowers if you pinch. I pinch mine 2 or 3 times and end up with stockier, more floriferous plants, than if I don't pinch.
There are very few annuals / perennials that do not respond well to being pinched.
Best to take early flower buds off anyway, as the plants are still developing their root systems and you want their energy to go into that, rather than flowers at the moment.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
How many inches are they usually when you pinch them? I don't want to do it to them when they're too young. Some of them started popping up from last year in the front of my garden and i just left them but don't want them too tall.
Last edited: 05 June 2017 00:14:45
I haven't pinched any of my cosmos yet. I might do it an a few of my cosmos versailles tetra and purity but hope it doesn't delay flowering too long. They are only about 15 inches tall so far but i see some flower buds. Feels like a shame to pinch those out. I think i'll leave the shorter variety of cosmos without pinching
I planted a couple of dozen Cosmos in my Garden last Spring. Then my Grandson decided to prune them like his granddad does with his other plants. He cut them back to about 3 inches off the ground. They turned out to be about 4 ft tall and the best Cosmos I have ever had !!!