When you don't deadhead bee balm, your plant shifts energy from making new flowers to ripening seeds. Your bloom season gets shorter. The plant looks brown and shaggy on top. Those seed heads drop seeds around the bed that sprout into a crowd of new seedlings the next spring.
I skipped deadheading an entire row of bee balm one busy summer. My flowers faded out by mid-July instead of lasting into August like my trimmed plants do. The bee balm deadheading effects hit me hardest the next spring. I found dozens of tiny seedlings across my bed and into the gravel path next to it. Some had popped up 3 feet (about 90 centimeters) from the parent plant. That one lazy season gave me a weeding project that lasted well into May.
My sister-in-law had the same surprise in her garden. She left all her bee balm flowers on the stems through fall. The following spring she counted over 50 seedlings in a bed that started with just four plants. She spent hours pulling them out. You can avoid this headache by cutting your spent blooms before seeds form.
The biology behind this is straightforward. Your bee balm wants to make seeds. When you cut a spent flower off, the plant reads that as a failed try. So it sends out a new round of flower buds for another attempt. This second flush can match the first one and extends your bloom window by 3 to 4 weeks in a good year. Leave the old flowers on and your plant succeeds at seed making on the first round. It has no reason to bloom again for you.
There is a flip side worth your thought. Bee balm seed production feeds wildlife through the lean months of fall and winter. Goldfinches, chickadees, and other small birds pick through your dried seed heads for food. The tall stems with seed heads also give native bees shelter for the cold months. So leaving spent flowers has real wildlife value for your garden.
Self-sown seedlings aren't always bad for you either. If you want your patch to expand and fill a large area, letting it self-sow does the work for free. The new plants won't match named varieties since seeds produce mixed offspring. You might get some fun color changes in the mix. But if you grew a specific cultivar for its traits, your seedlings may look different from what you picked out.
The smartest approach gives you the best of both options. Deadhead your first flush of flowers in early summer by cutting each stem back to a set of healthy leaves. This pushes your plant to produce that second round of blooms. Then leave the final flush of late-summer flowers on the stems. These last seed heads give food for birds through fall and winter while still giving you weeks of extra color earlier on.
Cut your old stems down to a few inches above the ground in early spring once you see new growth. This cleanup makes room for the new season and gives your wildlife the longest window to use those seed heads and hollow stems. You get a long bloom season and real value for the birds and bees that visit your garden.
Read the full article: Bee Balm Plant: How to Grow and Care
