Fingers

• Your thumb and index finger can be the easiest and best deadheading tool for delicate-stemmed flowers and flowers that bloom in clusters, making it difficult to use other tools. Pinch off the flower stem either immediately under the flower or lower at the first set of leaves, using your thumb and forefinger. This technique works well for flowers like geraniums, gladiolus, pansies and azaleas. For long stems of lilies and bulb-growing flowers, use your fingers to snap the stem off near the base of the plant with a quick bend and pinch of the stem.
  
  

Pruners

• For tough or woody-stemmed spent flowers like roses, zinnias, daisies or sunflowers, use sharp garden hand pruners or scissors. Cut the stem at a leaf joint, either the first joint below the flower head or a joint farther down the stem. Cutting at a leaf joint may promote additional flowers sprouting from the joint, depending on the type of plant.
  
  

Shears

• There are flowering plants that grow so dense or are covered with a mass of delicate blossoms, that pinching, snapping or snipping off spent flower heads would be extremely time-consuming. Plants like alyssum, lobelia, dianthus, campanula and lavender can be easily deadheaded, shaped, and growth-controlled using grass shears. These types of plants should be sheared regularly and before all the flowers are spent for continuous blooming and growth. Shear the plant back as far as you want; it may look scraggly for a week or two but soon will fill out thicker and with new flowers.
  
  

Tips

• Wear gloves when you are deadheading flowering plants with irritating sap -- such as hydrangea, calla lily, daffodil and many lilies -- to avoid contact and possibly developing a skin rash. Gloves are also helpful to protect your hands when deadheading roses and other thorny stems. It is important that you clean your pruners and shears with soapy water after deadheading a plant to eliminate the possibility of inadvertently spreading disease to a healthy plant.