I hated it when Grandma would pinch my cheeks as a kid. But that was her way of showing affection. Well, you can show the same affection to your plants this time of year. 

All too often we buy beautiful flats of annuals and each plant has a solitary bloom. Don’t be afraid to pinch it off. Plants have a natural defense mechanism to redirect hormonal growth to the side shoots if the tips are broken off. This leaves you with bushier plants that can then be spaced farther apart. So hey, pinching plants lets you pinch your pennies as well!

Gardeners have been pinching their mums for years. But look around your garden for any plants that have a tendency to be leggy. Pinching can delay bloom times depending on how far along the buds have developed. Some gardeners use pinching as a strategy for rescheduling bloom times in their gardens.

Some folks just can’t bring themselves to pinch off all their beautiful annual blooms. After all, we waited all winter to get some color into our garden beds. Maybe you are afraid of damaging a favorite perennial by pinching it back. Then try experimenting with pinching half of the stems. This will allow the remaining blooms to follow their normal course and create a second wave of blooms from the pinched-back stems.

Gardening is all about trial and error. So, try pinching back your tomato plants when they get to the desired height. And if your favorite recipe calls for a pinch of basil or a pinch of parsley, don’t just arbitrarily remove an outer leaf. Rather, pinch back a center stem to force lateral, bushy growth. Before you know it, pinching will become second nature…like it was with Grandma.

Posted by Bob Rensel

Tags: Pinching, Spring Gardening

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Bob Rensel, Spring Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.