If you want more flowers from your garden (and longer stems for cutting), there’s one simple trick I use every season: pinching back flowers.
“No thanks, I’d rather have fewer blooms,” said no flower grower ever.
You planted those zinnia seeds with visions of colorful arrangements in every room of your house. You pictured yourself handing a bouquet over to the neighbor and saying, “No, really, please take them. I can’t possibly fit any more flowers in my home.”
There’s a simple way to grow that level of blooms for harvest, without dedicating an entire commercial-size greenhouse to flowers.
But you have to do something a little counterintuitive, maybe even scary.
And that’s pinching back your cut flowers when the plants are still young. Pinching back results in bushier, more productive plants that produce blooms on longer stems.
In this beginner guide to pinching back plants, we’ll cover how and when to properly pinch flowers and which types of flowers benefit from this technique. Keep reading to learn how to double your cut flower yield this year.
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WHAT IS PINCHING BACK FLOWERS?
Pinching back flowers is simply removing the growing tip of a young plant to encourage it to branch out instead of growing straight up.
Instead of one tall stem with a single bloom, you’ll get a fuller plant with more stems, and more flowers to enjoy or cut.
THE BENEFITS OF PINCHING FLOWERS BACK
There are three very good reasons to take the extra step of removing the tender top growth of each plant when you’re growing cut flowers.
1. More Flowers
The most common reason to pinch back cut flowers is to maximize blooms. You’ll improve the overall appearance of your plant while also increasing productivity.
When a plant is pinched, it sends up two new stems, rather than one single (puny) central stalk. Each of these new stems will produce buds. That means you get double the flowers for every cut you make. More flowers to harvest and enjoy!
If you like creating floral arrangements from your garden, it’s worth emphasizing that the stem for each bloom will be longer, as well.
2. Healthier Plants
Pinching back is not done just for aesthetic reasons. It’s actually another form of pruning to keep plants healthy. Removing the growing tip temporarily redirects the plant’s energy from flower production to vegetative and root growth.
In other words, the roots will dig down deeper, the main stem will grow thicker, and side shoots will begin to form. The result is a more robust plant, one that can stand up to the elements, including wind, drought, and hard rain.
3. Longer Bloom Time
The goal of an annual plant is to flower and go to seed before the end of the growing season. Rather than wait, plants often try to accomplish this as early as possible, and stressors like heat and drought can encourage them to work even faster.
Pinching plants back slows them down and gives you blooms for longer, often the entire growing season.
What Happens If You Don’t Pinch Flowers?
It’s hardly the end of the world if you skip this step when growing flowers. You’ll still get flowers. They’ll just be single blooms on shorter stems. Your plants will grow overall less bushy.
If you have a short growing season, you may want to skip pinching your flowers because pinching delays bloom time by several weeks. Another option is to pinch some plants and leave the rest for early blooms.
Note: that not all flowers need to be pinched (more on that below).
WHEN TO PINCH FLOWERS
A general guideline is to pinch when the plants are still young, between 8 and 12 inches tall (20-30cm) with 3 to 5 sets of leaves. By this point, the plants are old enough and have enough mass to survive losing some leaves, but still young enough to bounce right back.
If you missed your pinching back window, I recommend waiting until you harvest the first flower to make a nice, deep cut. Your plant will still branch out, but slower.
Once you’ve pinched back your flowers for several seasons, you’ll develop a good sense for when to give ‘em the chop in the future.
Pro Tip: Wait until an overcast day to pinch back your plants. Pinching does stress the plants out a bit, so it’s nice to give your plants a little break from direct sunlight. If there’s nothing but sunny skies in your future, do this task in the evening.
HOW TO PINCH FLOWERS PERFECTLY
When your plants are ready to be pinched, aim to cut them back to about two-thirds their size. You’ll cut just above a set of leaves to encourage your plants to branch out from there.
Before you start, grab a clean pair of pruners or sharp scissors. Sanitize with rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide so that you don’t spread disease to the plants you’re cutting.
Follow these simple steps:
- Locate the central stem.
- From there, find a point 3 to 4 inches (7-10cm) from the top of the plant, just above a node, or set of leaves.
- Make a clean cut. The pinched tops can be tossed into your compost bin.
- Water the soil around the pruned plants to reduce stress.
You might feel like you’re inflicting severe harm on these perfectly healthy plants at first. I promise it gets easier with practice. And the results will be worth it. More blooms for you and the pollinators!
You should start to see new growth in just a few days. Within a week or two, the plants will be sending out new budding stems.
Pro Tip: Keep the golden rule of pruning in mind, which says to never remove more than one-third of a plant’s mass at one time. Your flowers need plenty of leaves remaining to photosynthesize and recover.
WHICH FLOWERS BENEFIT FROM PINCHING?
Pinching works best for cut-and-come-again flowering annuals. These plants have a branching form, and—as the name suggests—you can harvest blooms repeatedly. In fact, the more you cut them, the more they bloom.
These flowers benefit from pinching because it encourages them to produce more stems and, eventually, more flowers.
Some flowers that benefit from being pinched include: Ageratum (flossflower), Amaranth, Asters, Basil, Calendula, Carnations, Celosia (plume varieties), Cosmos, Dahlias, Gomphrena, Marigolds, Phlox, Salvia, Snapdragons, Strawflowers, Sweet peas, Sunflowers (branching varieties), and Zinnias.
WHICH FLOWERS SHOULD NOT BE PINCHED?
Some annual flowers are what we gardeners call “one-and-done” because they only ever produce a single flowering stem. Sunflowers are a classic example. If you pinch a single-stem sunflower, you’re never getting a bloom.
Other flowers branch naturally, so pinching is unnecessary. This group includes poppies and foxgloves.
Avoid pinching these flowers:
MORE TIPS TO MAXIMIZE BLOOMS
Here are a few more tips if you want prolific flowers for making bouquets from your garden:
Cut Carefully
Avoid pinching all the way down at the base of the plant, which would remove future blooms. You only want to cut 3 to 4 inches (7-10cm) from the top of the plant.
Provide the Right Nutrients
Flowering plants need sunlight, water, and nutrients to produce blooms. I like to feed my plants something like MicroLife’s Maximum Blooms or FoxFarm’s Tiger Bloom liquid plant food every 2 to 3 weeks during peak bloom time.
Harvest Regularly
The more blooms you harvest, the more blooms your plants will produce. That’s the wonderful nature of cut-and-come-again flowers. So harvest regularly from your flowers and don’t let spent blooms linger on the plants, consuming resources. Keep the plant’s energy focused on producing new flowers.
PINCHING BACK FLOWERS FAQs
Do you have to use pruners, snips, or scissors?
It’s best to use a clean and sharp tool like flower pruners, snips, or scissors. You can use your fingernails (I’m certainly guilty of this), but you do risk tearing stem tissue, which invites plant disease.
Will pinching back flowers delay their growth?
Pinching does delay blooming by a couple of weeks. If you want flowers as soon as possible, you may not want to pinch back at all or only pinch half your flowers back. The advantage of doing half would also be a longer harvest window because you’ll get some blooms now and then more later, instead of all at once.
Can you pinch flowers too late?
Yes, timing matters. If your plant is already flowering, you’ve technically missed the ideal window for pinching. At that point, it’s better to harvest the first bloom with a deeper cut above a leaf node to encourage branching. You’ll still get more stems, just not as quickly or as evenly as if you had pinched earlier.
Can you pinch back perennials?
Sometimes—but it depends on the plant. Many perennials don’t need pinching, and some won’t respond well to it. A few, like certain varieties of asters or mums, can benefit from pinching to encourage bushier growth. When in doubt, check how that specific plant grows before cutting.
How many times should I pinch each plant?
You’ll typically only pinch each flowering plant back one time. Once your plants are producing blooms, you’ll switch to harvesting, which serves a similar purpose of encouraging the plant to grow bushier and keep on producing. Again, the more you cut, the more you get.
What’s the difference between pinching and deadheading?
Gardeners often use these terms interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same. Technically speaking, deadheading is removing spent flowers (literally removing the dead head). Pinching, in contrast, removes young, tender growth.
Gardeners often deadhead by pinching flowers right where they meet the stem. Note that if you’re growing cut flowers, this practice will result in short stems that aren’t ideal for bouquets. It’s best to make deeper cuts above leaf nodes to encourage long stems.
Both practices have the benefits of prolonging flowering and encouraging more blooms.
That’s really all there is to this simple technique—but it makes a big difference.
Once you start pinching your flowers, you’ll notice fuller plants, longer stems, and way more blooms to bring inside or share with friends and family.
I pinch almost every cut flower I grow now, and it’s one of those small steps that pays off all season long.
If you’re just getting started, try pinching a few plants and leave the rest—you’ll quickly see the difference for yourself.
And if you’re building a cut flower garden, this is just one of the easiest ways to get more from every plant you grow.
