To deadhead or not to deadhead

Lots of flowers in my new bed means lots of decisions about whether to deadhead, or remove spent blossoms. 

Ox-eye sunflower and butterfly weed

Conventional garden wisdom rates deadheading as a necessity. It neatens up the garden, and more importantly, it’s intended to trigger the plant to make more flowers instead of channeling its energy into transforming fertilized flowers into seeds.

    As the flat yellow yarrow blossoms (Achillea ‘Coronation Gold’) turn brown, should I leave them to go to seed? 

Yarrow flowers this week

A trusted reference on perennials, Tracy DiSatabo-Aust’s The Well-Tended Perennial Garden, firmly dictates deadheading these flowers and promises they’ll be followed by new blooms from lateral buds and possibly from the plant’s base too.

Deadheading-photo Helen Harrop/Flickr through a Creative Commons license

    More flowers will provide more pollen for native insects. Jessica Walliser, in her book Attracting Beneficial Bugs, explains that native common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is favored by lacewings, ladybugs, syrphid flies, parasitic wasps, and damsel flies—all predators that consume leaf-eating insects, keeping the garden’s insect population in balance.

Green lacewing, a beneficial predator

     My yarrow is related to fern-leaf yarrow, a European introduction (Achillea filipendula). I hope it attracts most of the same bugs as the native. Jess observes minute pirate bugs, very active predators, living in the flowers of this cultivar. Insects benefiting from the flowers add reasons to go ahead and deadhead the yarrow in hopes the plants will flower again.

    On the other hand, in Gardening for the Birds, George Adams writes that many birds eat the seeds of common yarrow. He adds that some cavity-nesting birds harvest its foliage to line their nests. It seems that the strongly scented foliage repels parasites, so by making this choice, the birds as “self-medicating.” 

My yarrow's fern-like leaves

    But George Adams also notes that birds feed on the insects that are drawn to yarrow flowers. This summer and last, following his advice, I’ve put a moratorium on filling bird feeders with seed. This way birds are supposed to turn their attention to eating seeds and insects they find in the yard, rather than just birdseed I put out.

    Last summer I noticed that birds continued to visit the yard without finding seed in the feeders. One side benefit was the disappearance of European house sparrows, nonnative birds notorious for muscling aside native species and hogging all the food. I guess the sparrows aren’t interested in foraging for food and prefer to go where the pickings are lusher.

European house sparrow

    This is one of those environmental decisions with pros and cons on both sides. I can deadhead to offer more flowers for the insects, or let the flowers go to seed for the birds. If I deadhead, I should get to enjoy some more of the pretty yarrow flowers.

'Coronation Gold'

     You can probably tell which way I’m leaning. I think I’ll deadhead now and call it a scientific experiment. I'll see how many more blooms I get after deadheading. I’ll plan to let the flowers go to seed at the end of the summer, leave them standing, and see if I spot birds eating the seeds. That way we all win.

Common yarrow

Flowers and feathers

In April as my sap is rising, other inhabitants of the yard are out ahead of me getting things done.

To be a good neighbor to native creatures, starting with insects, I’m trying to offer blooms from early spring through late fall. Nectar is useful food for the bugs. I also want to provide the right shelter and reproductive conditions for insects and other animals.

    This week several kinds of small flowers are blooming on the garden floor. They aren’t spring ephemerals; they’ll keep their foliage through the summer. But they’re getting in their bid now for attention from early pollinators. I saw a bumblebee weaving above the flowers today, the first I’ve spotted this year. 

Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla)

Barren strawberry (Waldsteinia fragarioides)

Labrador violet (Viola labradorica)

Bishop's hat (Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum')

Some early-flowering shrubs and trees are getting in on the act too:

Quince (Chaenomeles x superba)

Serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea)

     Other animals are taking advantage of the warmer weather and longer days. Birds are very active, singing their territorial songs at dawn, feeding and looking for nesting materials all day. 

    Two years ago to help the bird line their nests, I bought a set of “grapevine globes” filled with cotton fiber from Duncraft. This was to invite birds to live in my yard, in hopes that they’ll help create an equilibrium between plants and leaf-eating insects. 

    The vines woven into hollow balls are attractive, but the cotton inside didn’t appeal to the local birds. They never pulled it out, and it gradually matted and discolored in the rain and snow. Birds in my yard are much more enthusiastic about white goose feathers I bought from DownLite Bedding, a company that sells them for topping up feather comforters. 

    Today I was able to poke the feathers through the openings in the vine balls. 

It’s even easier to fill up onion bags with the feathers and close them with twist ties. 

These balls of feathers look strange hanging in the trees, but the birds love them.

There’s a frenzy of activity as they peck out feathers and carry them away to where they’re “feathering” their nests. It’s satisfying to join in the work of spring.