Posted on: Friday, November 19, 2004
HAWAI'I'S GARDENS
Deadheading brings more profuse blooms
By Heidi Bornhorst
Q. What is deadheading? I see the term in Mainland garden magazines and books. Sounds like a rock band or something ... What plants in Hawai'i gardens need to get deadheaded?
— Joyce Tsuhako, 'Aina Haina
I also thought this was just a Mainland horticulture thing. I learned the term while I was an intern at the world-renowned Longwood garden in Pennsylvania. They taught us to deadhead the thousands of rhododendrons that had bloomed that spring. (I also learned about attack wasps, ground-nesting bees and stinging horseflies, and their various attack noises, as we deadheaded the rhodies to keep them from setting seed, so they would bloom profusely the next season.)
Working at the Hale Koa hotel, I learned from the great gardener Magdalena Bilermo to deadhead crape ginger. Being somewhat of a "botanical snob," crape ginger or Costus speciosus seemed like a common, unattractive and unfragrant ginger plant.
The flower heads looked messy, with old wilting brown blossoms. Maggie would spend a quick moment with her skilled gardener hands and pluck the old blossoms. By the time she finished, the ginger was very pretty with fresh white flowers, the red pineapple-looking inflorescences (flower heads or stalks), and the nice, soft, fuzzy leaves of this old-fashioned plant.
"This is true horticulture!" I shouted.
It's amazing what you can learn from those you work with if you keep your eyes open.
Other Hawai'i plants benefitting from deadheading are white, yellow and kahili fragrant gingers. Pluck them as buds and make a lei, or enjoy them for fragrance in your home, office or hair. Pluck wilted flowers, and the whole flower head will look pretty and produces more fresh blooms. These fragrant ginger flowers only last a day, so you might as well pick and enjoy them.
Other plants also benefit from deadheading.
• Gardenias: Always pluck all buds if you can, and for sure all spent flowers. This will help control thrips (the tiny irritating black insects that bug gardenia blossoms and proliferate in old flowers left on the plant). • Spider lilies: Snap off the pau flowers. This will make more blooms and also fruits in green, or purple if they're the the Queen Emma type. • Orchids: pluck off the pau blossoms and developing seed pods that sometimes form on dendrobiums and other types. The seed pod takes a lot of energy that could go into flower production. Think of all the energy and nutrients that a hapai woman puts into her developing child. The same holds true with plants. • Hibiscus, especially the native Hawaiian fragrant whites, or koki'o ke'o ke'o are good parents. They want to set seed, and they are the kupuna of many of our modern hybrids. If you want lots of flowers and fewer mealy bugs and other insects, pluck off any developing seed heads and put them in your compost pile.
• Pentas or star flower, daylilies, roses and many other plants will bloom better if pruned and deadheaded. In Bloom
Do we have global warming or is the climate merely changing? We have some strange plants in bloom at odd times.
I saw the lavender blossoms of jacaranda carpeting the ground in a Waikiki urban forest. We spotted a gold tree in Moanalua Valley. Coming down the pali in the pouring rain, I spotted bridal veil vine, or porana, in plush full bloom by Kapena Falls. All of these lovely flowering plants usually bloom in spring for us.
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable-landscape consultant. Submit questions to islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com or Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Letters may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.
Many Hawai'i plants benefit from deadheading. They will bloom better and look a lot more attractive.
