How to Pinch a Plant for Full Growth and High Yields
Sometimes the best way to get gorgeous blooms and control a plant’s shape is to pinch it. Learn what it means to pinch a plant and the best strategies to ensure you get bigger, better blossoms this summer.
Growing great plants takes lots of maintenance, and that often includes pinching them. Far from hurting your garden, pinching plants can encourage bloom production and promotes branching to help them achieve a better shape.
Here’s how to pinch a plant for the best results.
“Pinching” a plant is actually a form of pruning where you remove parts of the main stem to encourage fuller growth and a longer blooming period.
A soft pinch involves merely taking the top inch off stems, similar to deadheading.
A hard pinch, in contrast, involves removing several tiers of leaves and multiple inches from the top. In many cases, you will remove the main stem directly above its leaf nodes in order to force the plant to grow two new stems from the shoot.
Not all flowers are suitable for pinching, but species that respond well include petunia, dahlia, marigold, sweet peas, and geranium, as well as herbs like basil, tarragon, thyme, and sage.
Be careful not to pinch campanula, delphinium, dill, larkspur, and most sunflowers, as removing their main stem will stop flower production altogether.
Pinching certain plants offers many benefits, including the following.
Although pinching plants is a form of pruning, it’s possible to do so with little more than your fingernails. However, garden shears can make the job easier, especially if you have multiple plants to pinch at once.
Plan to pinch early in the season so that you encourage bushing and spreading during the plant’s most vigorous growing time.
To pinch, simply put your thumb and forefinger around the new growth, squeezing with your fingernails until it comes off the plant. You want to take care to pull it off in a seamless way, so you don’t unnecessarily tear the plant and leave a large wound.
Make sure you pinch as close to the leaf nodes as possible, taking care not to hurt the pair of tiny buds forming there. Each of these leaf nodes will turn into a new stem, meaning that you’ll get two new branches for each one you pinch off.
It’s possible to pinch plants again once they have produced two or three more sets of leaves. Plan to stop pinching once you achieve your desired shape, and give the plant a generous dose of a phosphorus-based liquid fertilizer to keep the plant from getting stressed and to promote healthy flower production.
You can prolong the blooming season further by deadheading dry, withered blooms as you see them. If you want to stagger flowers throughout the summer for late-season bloomers like asters and sage, pinch back half of your plants by one-third. These pinched plants will then bloom later than the others and prolong your flower season.
It’s important to stop pinching plants by the middle of the growing season if your goal is seed production. Leave these late blooms in place so that they can successfully go to seed before the end of warm weather.
Pinching plants is an easy way to maximize the beauty of your garden. Do you research about which varieties respond best to pinching, and you’ll be rewarded with gorgeous flowers for far longer than you would otherwise.
