deadhead bee balm?

mm12463 · Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:37 pm

Bought bee balm this year and I am wondering do you deadhead it?
At what point? The stuff I have looks like they are about done as the petals, if they are that, are coming off little by little.

Two pics. One where it looked good and now when it looks like it needs to be deadhead. That current pic sucks - was getting dark and really windy.

[img]https://www.silver-fox.us/plants/beebalm.jpg[/img]

Thanks for the help.

hendi_alex · Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:15 pm

IMO dead heading never hurts, unless you want to collect seeds. As soon as the flowers are spent, snip them off. This will often encourage a secondary bloom. The same is true for annuals except the continued bloom will generally be more vigorous than will be the case for perennials.

mm12463 · Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:29 pm

Thanks

Garden Spider · Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:03 pm

I never dead head anything. I let things go to seed, to provide birds with food. I have no place to start germinating seeds, anyway, so there's no point in collecting/saving seeds for me.

Lexy1700 · Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:57 am

Hello There, I dead head my bee balm regularly. I'm really not sure if you're supposed to or not, but I make it a habit to just go through once a day and pretty much dead head anything that has gone by. I don't see how it could be harmful, so might as well! My mother however just lets her beebalm go to seed, and she has an abundance of beautiful plants. I think its really your personal preference!