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Secrets to Getting Your Flowers to Bloom More & Last Longer!

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My husband has been planting so many flowers in our back yard. I think he is up to a thousand plants planted this year. He grows them from seed in his greenhouse so it is pretty cost effective. AND, I love the color of the backyard when everything is in full bloom! Now, you don’t need to have thousands of flowers planted in order to keep your yard full of color. Here are a few tips that can help keep your flower beds colorful until the end of summer.

1. Plant flowers that bloom at different times of the summer. These purple flowers come up in the early spring to mid summer and just as they are starting to die off some other flowers we have planted here start blooming to take their place!

2. Pinch off the first blooms. Yep, I know, it doesn’t seem right. You wait for the first blooms only to pinch them off. It actually encourages the sap flow in the plant, and allows more blooms to appear and last longer. This works best with annuals like petunias or impatiens (not plants grown from bulbs). This also helps the side blooms of the plant to become more establish and the plant ultimately becomes fuller. Clipping off the flowers that are dead and dying also helps the plant to keep blooming longer!

3. Fertilizing flowers. Just like us, flowers need nutrients from food in order to flourish. There are lots of different way to fertilize your flowers. My favorite is sprinkling some osmocote into the ground around the flowers. For heavy feeding flowers like petunias it is a good idea to apply some Bloom Booster (according to package directions) about once a week after watering.

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Plant Food and Bloom Booster $4.89

Osmocote Plant Food

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Secrets of Getting Flowers For FREE!

I love happy flowers.

You know the kind you look at and they just make you smile…anyway…daisies are one of those flowers on my happy list. One way to grow healthier flowers and increase the quantity of flowers in your garden is to divide them.

For the price of a little digging, you can double or triple your perennials and trade the divided parts with your friends and neighbors {FREE FLOWERS!!}. Spring is the perfect time to divide many perennials. The rule of thumb is if they blossom in the spring then divide them in the fall. If they blossom in late summer or fall then divide them in the spring when they are just starting to grow.

These Shasta Daisies were getting overgrown so I decided to divide them so I would have more.

If the weather has been very dry, water the plants to be divided the day before.

Cut into the soil with your spade (or shovel in my case) ideally about six to eight inches from the edge of the plant’s crown (center), then dig around and under the entire plant before lifting it carefully.

You can carefully separate the dug up plants individually or into sections if you wish. If you can’t replant immediately, pot your divisions up in spare nursery pots and store them in a shady spot, keeping them well watered.

Work in soil enrichments like compost or well-rotted manure, and rake the bed level.

Like all plants, perennials need enough water to keep them growing and healthy and a good dose of fertilizer always helps.

Now the reasons you would want to divide any perennial would be:

To rejuvenate old plants and encourage new growth and blossoms.
To control the size of the plants, especially for perennials that spread rapidly.
To increase the amount of flowers in your garden!

There are many books written just on the topic of when and how to divide every kind of flower.