How to deadhead blanket flowers – to unleash their full flowering potential for limitless color and vigor
Deadhead gaillardia this summer and prepare yourself for relentless color all season long

Blanket flower, also known as gaillardia, is a titillatingly exuberant border plant that sets a blaze of color across any garden and flowers profusely in excited fecundity.
It grows and flowers at an almighty rate, filling up borders with color at a gallop. It is one of the best fast-growing flowers to plant in spring, and will bloom continuously from May right through to October. But despite its full-throttle theatrics all summer long, deadheading can make it shift a gear, and flower even more profusely and for even longer.
Here's everything you need to know about deadheading these ebullient and wonderfully easygoing plants.
Is it essential to deadhead blanket flowers?
The short and sweet answer to this question is no, it is not strictly essential to the health and lifespan of your blanket flower plant to be deadheaded.
However, if aesthetic considerations play a part in your gardening scheme, and to my mind that will ring true for most of us, then whilst deadheading isn't strictly necessary for health reasons, deadheading will vastly improve how much of a generous flowerer your blanket flowers are throughout summer. Deadheading will prevent the plant from making seed and encourage further blooming.
Whilst blanket flowers will continue to produce flowers without deadheading, regular deadheading will coax even more flowers out of each plant, so to fully maximise the flowering potential of your plants, it is best practice to do so.
Besides, deadheading is extremely easy and cathartic. Best done when wandering and admiring the garden in the evening, with chilled drink in hand.
When to deadhead blanket flowers
These colorful daisy-like flowers bloom for an incredibly long time, often found pumping out flowers from spring through summer and right into fall. You can deadhead throughout this entire growing season, indeed, you should.
The idea is to deadhead the spent flowers before the plant drops the petals and makes the seed head. Interrupting this process will prevent the message from returning to the plant that their flowering job is done. You may find this happens very quickly, so it's best to check them routinely as you wander about the garden, and if you spot a spent flower, remove it immediately.
Spent flowers are glaringly obvious, not least because they often look scruffy and lethargic. Look out for wilting, browning, and fatigued-looking petals.
As you hurtle into fall, you should stop deadheading blanket flowers and let them produce their seeds. Their seeds provide a wonderful buffet for songbirds, so do leave them on the plant for a while before cutting all the stems back to the ground, which should be done when flowering is finally over. You can pick up deadheading the following spring when they begin to flower once again.
How to deadhead blanket flowers
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to deadhead blanket flowers
- Identify the flowers that need removing
- Clean your pruning tools to prevent the transmission of diseases
- Cut off the flower stem below the spent flower and just above the first set of full, healthy leaves
- Collect the spent flowers and add to the compost bin
- Don't fertilize after deadheading blanket flowers; they prefer poor soil, so a light watering will suffice
Shop blanket flower summer essentials
If you haven't already been deadheading your blanket flowers, now's the time to dust off those gardening snips and get out there. There are over two dozen species of annual and perennial blanket flowers, so you can grow several different varieties to inject serious quantities of color into your yard.
Design expertise in your inbox – from inspiring decorating ideas and beautiful celebrity homes to practical gardening advice and shopping round-ups.
Sophia Pouget de St Victor is the UK Editor at Homes & Gardens, leading the editorial direction for the UK facing Homes & Gardens website. She brings readers the latest trends, expert insights, and timeless design inspiration tailored for a UK audience.
She has previously worked in the luxury homes and interiors industry and studied Garden Design in London, where she mastered her passion for creating landscapes that have a visceral impact on their onlookers. Home, though, is where Sophia's heart is. While she adores a wide variety of interior styles, she prefers interiors with a uniqueness that challenges any definable style. That said, there's little she finds more indulgent than walking down Pimlico Road and admiring the window display at Robert Kime; she has always found his interiors perfectly judged for a home that exudes an easy, unforced elegance.
Sophia lives in West London with her partner, along with two very naughty wiry terriers, and a plump cat named Lettuce.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.