Expert: Long Island Gardener - 6/5/2007

Question
I am a major gardening rookie and I have read everywhere that I am supposed to remove the faded flower spikes on the Torch Lilly to promote new growth. My question is how do you do this? :-D Do I remove the top flower part or the whole stalk?? Thanks for your help!

~Ali

Answer
Ali, If there are no leaves on the stalk, you can remove the stalk or branch.  The reason we do that is to keep the flower from making seeds.  That goes for almost everything we grow, unless we are farmers, in which case we might want those seeds, or we might not.  Seeds take a LOT of energy and resources.  We want our flowers to bloom -- MORE energy and resources.  The fewer seeds they make, the more leaves and flowers we'll get, whether we're growing Roses, Grass, Hydrangeas, Apple Trees, Jasmine or Torch Lilies.

FYI: A fertilizer higher in Phosphorous will help your flowering plants do better.  Phosphorous content is listed on the container somewhere.  You will notice it as the N-P-K number -- it might say something like 5-2-4 or 20-10-15 or 10-5-5.  You want one that has the biggest number in the middle.  It woul say 5-10-5 or 2-5-1 or 10-28-12.  Got that?

Phosphorous builds flowers, fruit and roots.  Everything we grow needs it to do those things.  If you give a flowering plant too much Nitrogen, and/or not enough Phosphorous, it will give you plenty of leaves, and not enough flowers or fruit.  We give Grass a lot of Nitrogen ('N') because we want it to give us plenty of leaves.  But flowering plants like Daisies or Orchids usually needs more Phosphorous -- the 'P' in N-P-K.

Thanks for writing!  Any questions?