How to Deadhead Petunias (Step by Step)

Look at your petunia plant and find the blooms that are past their prime. A spent flower is wilted, the color has faded, and the petals are starting to roll inward or close up. Some will already be brown at the edges.

Leave the bright open flowers and the unopened buds alone. You are only removing the tired blooms - that's what tells the plant to keep producing more.

This is the part most people skip and it's the whole reason petunias get leggy. Trace the wilted petal down its yellow trumpet shape. At the base, where the flower meets the stem, there's a small green bulb wrapped in tiny green leaves. That's the seed pod.

Touch it with your finger so you know exactly what you are removing. Once you can find it, the rest of the work goes fast.

Position your thumbnail and index finger on the stem just below the green seed pod. Squeeze and twist gently. A healthy petunia stem snaps cleanly with a soft pop. You want to break the stem below the pod so the whole thing comes off in your fingers.

If you are working on woody older stems near the base of the plant, switch to garden shears. Forcing a tough stem with your fingers can rip bark down the side of the stem and damage the plant.

The wilted petal and the green seed pod should come away as one piece in your hand. If you look at what you removed and only see the dried trumpet without the firmer green bulb, you missed the pod. Go back to the plant and look at that spot - the bulb is still there.

Drop the spent flowers in a bucket or compost pile. Don't toss them back into the basket soil. The seeds will eventually sprout and crowd the parent plant.

Look at the spot where you just deadheaded. The stem should end at a clean leaf node with no green bulb attached. If you still see a small fuzzy green pod sitting there, the petal pulled off but the seed stayed behind.

That is the most common mistake. Pinch the leftover pod off and you're done. Over the summer the difference between leaving pods on and removing them all is huge - the plant either keeps making flowers or quietly shuts down.

If your plant already has long bare stems with a single bloom at the very end, those need a harder cut. Use garden shears and trim the stem back by about a third. Cut just above a leaf node so the plant has a place to branch from.

It feels brutal the first time but the plant recovers fast. Within a week or two new growth comes out below the cut and the plant fills back in fuller than before.

Right after deadheading is a good time to water the basket through. Pour water across the soil slowly until you see it running out the bottom. Hanging baskets dry out fast in summer and stressed plants don't bloom well no matter how cleanly you deadhead.

Mix a liquid bloom-booster fertilizer into the water every one to two weeks. Look for one with a higher middle number on the label - that's phosphorus, the nutrient that drives flower production. Petunias are heavy feeders and a basket with steady nutrition rewards you with blooms right through September.