September gardening tips: Deadhead your borders

Deadhead herbaceous flowers to encourage further growth

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You will have noticed that autumn is now advancing, and this brings much to do for the gardener. The view from your window will be much improved if you work daily through your herbaceous plantings, selectively deadheading here, removing brown tissue there, and tidying away the incipient signs of decay.

Of course, if you’re a dahlia grower, this is a basic requirement, as things are now building to a crescendo. The principle behind deadheading is that it keeps up the impetus for further flowering, delaying the completion of the lifecycle. All the more for the compost heap.

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