How to deadhead a rose

Feeding your roses will encourage strong, healthy growth and abundant flowering. It’s a relatively quick and simple task, yet is one of the most beneficial jobs you can do to ensure that your roses are at their most healthy and floriferous when summer arrives.

What is deadheading?

Deadheading is the removal of finished blooms to encourage further blooms and improve the appearance and shape of the rose. You should deadhead repeat-flowering shrub roses and once-flowering shrub roses that don’t produce hips. Do not deadhead hip-producing roses if you want hips in the autumn/winter.

You will need

Deadheading snips

Secateurs

Gloves

How to deadhead

There are two stages to deadheading. The first is mainly aesthetic, removing the brown finished blooms so you can enjoy the remaining flowers without interruption. The second stage encourages new blooms and helps to maintain a compact shape.

Step 1
Remove a finished bloom from a flowering head

Pinch or cut off the finished flower, just below where the base of the flower joins the stem. Leave any remaining buds or blooms to continue flowering. Continue this as required throughout the flowering season.
Step 2
Remove a flowering head

Remove the entire flowering head by cutting the stem just above the first leaf with five leaflets. Once all the flowering heads have been removed, cut any disproportionally tall stems back to the height of the rest of the plant, creating a neat rounded shape as you go.

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