Deadheading

Daylily seed head

What is deadheading? Removing the spent (dead or dying) flower or developing seed heads that follow. Some you can easily snap off, if not use a pruners to make a clean cut. Plant wounds like people wounds heal quicker when it's a nice clean cut verses long and jagged.
Why deadhead?

• as I mentioned in the previous post a plants only purpose is to produce seed
• a plant uses a ton of energy producing the flowers, and then even more to produce and ripen the seeds
• removing the flower heads right after they start to decline, helps to save the energy in the plant and not waste it on seed production
• removing flowers on many types of plants will encourage more blooming, as the plant will think "I haven't produced seeds yet" and continue to pump out flowers
• only plants that are 'open pollinated' or 'standards' will produce true seed. Most of the plants these days are some type of hybrid - F1 or F2's. They will NOT produce the same plant from their own seeds. Any plant considered a 'cultivar' (which many are) are only maintained under"cultivation" which is human intervention, and their seeds also will not produce the same.

Some seed heads are attractive and used in floral work. Big established plants won't be stressed like smaller plants would be to develop seed heads. When deadheading it's optional to cut back the entire stem vs. snipping off the end, I'll leave that up to your flexibility!