Yesterday I spent some time in the afternoon cleaning up my front garden. I had originally started on my new arbor project but the rain kept stopping and starting forcing me to keep the electrical cords away.

So, I had some time to kill and my garden was in dire need of some TLC. I whipped out the secateurs and began deadheading my coreopsis, gaillardia's, standard icebergs and some of the salvia's that had finished flowering. It was extremely satisfying to cut away all this dead material and see that plants still existed beneath it.

Deadheading the coreopsis is always a treat because it can become so spindly with dead stems that when you finally cut these away it reveals all the new lush growth. The struggle with removing the spent flowers on a plant like coreopsis is that inevitably you will cut away some of the new buds. You could try and save them all but it would be such a time-consuming job that I find it's better just to deadhead the lot and suffer the consequences. It's going to flower again soon anyway!

I still haven't finished all my deadheading but I should be able to knock most of it on the head by the end of the weekend - weather permitting.