Blooming plants are essential for fruit and nut production, and are necessary for bright and colorful gardens. Knowing when and how plants bloom and what specific needs are required is important to growing flowering plants.
Some plants bloom on new growth. Crepe myrtles are a good example of this. Therefore rapid and healthy growth following winter dormancy will result in larger, denser and longer-lasting flowers.
Winter pruning and spring fertilizing are major contributors to healthy summer blooms of crepe myrtles. Fertilizing during bloom is not damaging and can support the current bloom and ensure a longer bloom time.
Some plants bloom on older wood such as peaches, which bloom on one-year wood. The growth they make this summer will produce fruit next year following spring bloom. Therefore these types of plants, which include flowering fruit trees as well as producing fruit trees, need to show good growth now. Fertilizing now can encourage bloom next year.
In the realm of vegetable gardens, most plants are annual and need to bloom quickly and as often as the species would allow. Some vegetables such as squash will bloom within 30 days of planting seeds, but fade within another 30-45 days. The plants receive signals from various hormones that they have completed their life cycle and ensured perpetuation of the species and then rapidly decline.
Fertilizing these during bloom can extend their life as well as their yield. Keeping the fruits of most vegetables harvested before they become mature also can prevent these plant compounds from ending productivity before you are ready.
A side note for squash and other gourd members such as cucumbers and melons is that this family of plants has male and female flowers. The first flowers to appear are nearly always male. Female flowers follow several days later and then become pollinated mainly by bees, which results in fruit. No bees results in no or little fruit.
The consolation prize with squash is that you can eat the blossoms!
It takes energy to produce fruit and seeds. Plants will require an enormous amount of stored food and carbohydrates to mature fruit and seed.
If blooms are the primary goal and not the resulting fruit or seeds, removing the seeds before they mature will help allow plants to use these resources for new growth and even more blooming. Deadheading is a commonly used term to remove spent blooms before they produce seed and a time-proven garden task.
Deadheading flowering annuals such as marigold, geranium, zinnia and coleus along with perennials such as esperanza (yellow-bells), roses, lantana (berry producers) and salvia will extend their bloom while keeping them fresh looking.
It is harder to remove seeds from trees such as desert willow or crepe myrtles, but this also will work at increasing length of bloom.
Plant breeders are introducing selections of plant favorites that seldom or never produce fruit or seed after blooming to ensure longer-lasting and more colorful blooms.
Some introductions include the seedless desert willows such as "arts seedless" and "timeless beauty." A good substitute for desert willow is the chitalpa, which is a cross between the Texas native desert willow and the catalpa and is a sterile hybrid never producing seeds.
Mother always said, "Keep your bloomers fresh."
John Begnaud is a retired Tom Green County Extension agent for horticulture. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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