Deadheading Zinnias: Easy way to Double Your Blooms

Every year, I look forward to growing Zinnias for their vibrant colors and beautiful blooms. They make excellent cut flowers. Ultimately, having a constant supply of gorgeous blooms is the goal so, deadheading Zinnias was a skill that I needed to master.  

What Does Deadheading Zinnias Mean?

Deadheading Zinnias Is the process of removing spent blooms or the tops of new growth on young plants.  This encourages new growth, which leads to more beautiful Zinnias.

Tools & Materials for Deadheading Zinnias

When it comes to deadheading Zinnias, the tools are simple.  A good pair of pruners or scissors is the best way.  Just be sure they are clean so you aren’t spreading any fungal diseases or viruses from other vegetable garden to plants to your beautiful flowers,

Deadheading Zinnias: A Step-By-Step Guide

Deadheading Zinnias is a fairly easy garden task.  Grab your pruners, set aside a little bit of time, and head to the garden beds to deadhead Zinnias. It’s one of those quiet garden tasks to do in early summer that is relaxing and often a time of reflection and reconnection.

Find Your Spent Blooms

Pull up a good garden stool and get comfy to find your spent blooms.  You’ll want to look for the Zinnia blooms that were once vibrant blooms that have now started to lose their color.

Often times, the petals along the outer edges of the Zinnia flower heads will start to turn brown. These are the spent blooms you want to remove on a regular basis.

Cut Your Spent Blooms

Once you have found your spent blooms, deadhead Zinnias by making diagonal, clean cuts.. Follow the flower stem down to the first set of leaves.  This is where you’ll want to make your cut, at a minimum.

To encourage your plants to grow longer stems, you can deadhead much further down the flower stalk, still cutting just above a set of leaves. 

Repeat Throughout the Growing Season

During the busy gardening season, I like to make a schedule. Specific gardening tasks such as weeding, pest control, pruning or deadheading Zinnias, get assigned to a day of the week.

Putting this simple task on a schedule of sorts makes staying on top of the deadheading process and other chores more manageable.  Regular deadheading will give you abundant new blooms and long-lasting flowers well past late summer. 

Why should I Deadhead Zinnia Flowers

When you take the time to deadhead Zinnias, you are redirecting the plants energy from seed production to growing more flowers.  Deadheading Zinnias will encourage new growth and new flower buds on your healthy Zinnia plants, which will give you colorful flowers for a long time. 

How Often to Deadhead Zinnia Flowers

You can start deadheading Zinnias as soon as you see the first blooms starting to fade. I then like to put it on a weekly rotation of looking over my healthy Zinnia plants to see where I can deadhead Zinnias.  When ever the season is coming to a close, you can leave the spent blooms in place to collect seed heads from your best flowers.

So, What is Pinching Zinnias?

While pinching Zinnias is also a popular choice of gardeners who grow Zinnias, it is done before flowers start to bloom. To encourage your young plants to grow more side shoots, pinching off the top growth of your Zinnia seedlings is a good idea. It’ll give you bushier plants, with more blooms.

When to Pinch Zinnias?

You can start pinching off your Zinnias once your Zinnia seedlings have two sets of their first true leaves. You can continue to do this throughout the growing season to encourage new side shoots, leading to more blooms. 

Why Should I Pinch Zinnias?

Pinching off the top growth above the two sets of true leaves will take your Zinnia plant from a single stem to a double stem. Pinching your Zinnias will lead to double the blooms.

How to Pinch Zinnias for More Flowers?

Find the first two sets of true leaves and pinch or prune off the new growth.  Continue pinching throughout the growing season if you want your plants to put off more side shoots.

Which is Better: Deadheading Zinnias Vs. Pinching Zinnias?

Both deadheading Zinnias and pinching Zinnias have their benefits.  Pinching Zinnias will produce more growth and side shoots.  Deadheading Zinnias will encourage your healthy Zinnia plants to produce more blooms. 

Deadheading Zinnias Tips and Tricks

• Avoid Cutting Too Close to the flower- At a minimum cut above the first set of leaves down the stem.  Cutting further down the stem will result in nice long new stems. 
• Keep Your Tools Clean and Sharp- Keep your pruners clean so you don’t spread fungus or viruses.  Keeping them sharp will result in a better healed cut on the stem, reducing disease and encouraging growth. 
• Deadhead Regularly-Again, I like to deadhead my Zinnias once a week. 
• Overlooking Dead Flowers-This will waste the plants energy on those spent flowers. You want your plant to put energy into the new blooms.

What to Do With the Deadheaded Zinnia Blooms

If you’ve been around me long enough, you know that I love to collect seeds. Ok, way too many seeds. After I’ve gotten my fill of Zinnia seeds, they can be tossed into the compost pile or left in place in the garden to self seed for next year. They are annual flowers so they will need to be started again next year by seed.

Saving Zinnia Seeds 

Saving Zinnia seeds is easy.  You want to save seeds from your best plants, making sure not to save seeds from any plants with powdery mildew.  Often times those seeds will produce plants that are susceptible to powdery mildew.  

Wait until your flower heads are mostly dry. As you pull petals off dead flower heads, you’ll see a pointy almost arrow head look to the end of the petal.  Those are the seeds.  

They should be dry and a brownish color, as opposed to immature seeds that will be moist and white. You can collect the seeds and store them in a paper bag in a cool place or in an airtight container, such as a mason jar.

Maintaining & Growing Healthy Zinnia Plants

Choose a location that gets full sun, which is usually 6-8 hours a day.  Additionally, choose a spot that offers good air circulation. This will help to prevent foliar diseases such as powdery mildew later in the season.

Zinnias can grow in most soil conditions, but the ideal soil will be rich in organic matter and well-drained soil. Soil pH should be between 5.5 and 7.5. Soil that is amended with compost will grow flowers quickly.

Spacing and Preparation

In my experience, Zinnias grow best if direct sowed into the garden, after the last danger of frost.  You can direct sow these annual plants for an extended blooming season.

There are a ton of Zinnia varieties and some require different spacing requirements so be sure to read the back of your seed packet.  On average, you can direct sow Zinnia seeds in well-drained soil 1/4 inch deep, 6 inches apart, with two feet in between rows.

Depending on your climate and if your garden is susceptible to powdery mildew, you may want to thin your Zinnia seedlings, 6-18 inches apart, once they are a few inches tall to maximize airflow.

Watering your Zinnias

Be sure to water your Zinnias deeply a couple times a week. They prefer well-drained, moist soil. I prefer to water mine at the base of the plant, which keeps the foliage dry so I’m not encouraging powdery mildew. 

Fertilizing Your Zinnias

Zinnias are not heavy feeders. If you are starting seeds in compost, you may find that your Zinnias do not need anything additional.  If you’d like to give them an extra boost, using a complete fertilizer trio, like the Fox Farm Trio, will do a beautiful job growing and producing Zinnias. 

Mulching your Zinnias

Mulching your flower beds will help to maintain moisture levels, regulate soil temperature, add organic matter to your soil, fight erosion, and help build soil structure overtime.  If you are trying to decide which mulch to use in the garden, you may be interested reading Bark Vs Mulch.

Pest and Disease Management

Zinnias are prone to powdery mildew and blight, both of which are common in the vegetable garden. These can be spread plant to plant by pruners that are not clean and by common garden pests.

Garden pests can be controlled with the regular use of neem oil, Captain Jack’s insecticidal soap, or my favorite, Captain Jacks Dead Bug Brew.  Disease is often amplified in gardens that are planted too densely.

Spraying copper or sulfur-based fungicides when disease is detected will help keep them in check, as will regular pruning.  Don’t forget to clean those pruners though.   

Pruning Zinnias

Not only will pruning or deadheading Zinnias create more quality blooms and extend the growing season, it will also create more air flow.  Zinnias will be less susceptible to disease with better airflow. 

What Happens if You Don’t Deadhead Zinnias?

So what if you aren’t deadheading Zinnias? It’s not the end of the world.  Many beginner gardeners don’t. You will still probably get lots of fresh flowers but probably have a shorter growing season.  

Deadheading Zinnias is not a requirement but is considered to be of best practice.  Unless you have a Zinnia variety that doesn’t require deadheading, as some of the newer varieties don’t.

Zinnias in the Profusion Series and Zahara Series are a great option that don’t require deadheading. These hybrids continue to bloom burst of color without deadheading.  Clipping off the old flowers every couple of days does keep the zinnia beds looking nice though. 

​Deadheading Zinnias in the Garden

As you can see, deadheading Zinnias in your flower cutting garden is a good way to promote new growth so you have a constant supply of gorgeous blooms.  It’s an easy task that pays off with lots of colorful blooms. Good luck in your flower garden!

You may also enjoy reading and downloading my Free Printable Companion Planting Chart

​Happy Homesteading & Flower Gardening,

Jenny @ The GrahamStead Family Farm

Jenny and her family have been homesteading for over 20 years. They are currently farming on their 10 acre Florida farm, that they built from the ground up, 8 years ago, growing 100% of their meat and a lot of their vegetables. From their small herd of Aberdeen Angus Cattle, Pastured Poultry, Sheep, and seasonal pigs, they are able to raise enough meat for the family while selling extra to the community. All the while, striving to butcher at home, as much as possible, and use the bits and pieces of their harvest by preserving food, making bone broth, and (Jenny’s favorite) tanning all kinds of hides!

Sources: https://www.almanac.com/plant/zinnias