Gotta love those knock-outs!!! by perennialpal
TheGardenLady received this question from John.
Are you supposed to cut spent flowers on Encore Roses? Some say you are and others say don’t. Which is correct?
Cutting spent flowers is referred to as dead heading. Dead heading is like a minor form of pruning. People do it to most perennial flowers so that the plants look neater and it forces more flowering.
However, that being said, the Knock Out Roses are bred for easy maintenance and one of the things they have eliminated is making it necessary to deadhead. On their website it says “All seven members in The Knock Out® Family of Roses are self-cleaning so there is no need to deadhead.”
So though it is not necessary to deadhead spent roses from my Knock Out Roses, TheGardenLady will cut off the remains of the stem end of the roses that have died, but only for aesthetic reasons.
If you’d like to read a previous post on the issue of dead-heading Knock Out Roses, check this post out.