It is time to sow seeds of Foxgloves, Sweet Williams and Canterbury Bells for next year’s display.  Make a shallow drill in moist soil and sprinkle the seeds thinly along the row.  Cover with more soil and label so you know what plants you need to transplant in early Autumn.  Dead-heading flowers will always encourage maximum blooming as this prevents the setting of seed and a natural tendancy of plants to stop all further growth once they have achieve their life’s ambition of producing seed for the next generation.  Most Petunias, including the Surfinia and Millions Bells type, are sterile and so do not set seed, so this is a job that doesn’t have to be carried out for maximum plant vigour.  Begonias grown from tubers on the other hand produce male and female flowers.  Just like the bird population the male of the species is highly decorative and showy.  In Begonias male flowers are the large multi-petalled balls of colour, whereas the female flowers are small and single and carry a diamond-shaped swelling behind each flower.  To prevent seeds from sowing and encourage many more male flowers pinch out the female flowers as soon as they are noticed.

Dead head flowers such as old fashioned Pinks, Fuchsias and Pansies to encourage further flowering and if you want a tip, cut your Pansies off to a few inches with the scissors, add a bit more compost and plant over the top of them with possibly Salvias or Geraniums.  The Pansies will then start shotting again and give a lovely floral base.  For monster heads of Dahlias pinch out some of the buds to leave a ‘king’ flower that will draw energy and grow really large.  Pinch out the top of the main shoot of Chrysanthemum and Dahlia plants so they grow bushy and produce many more side shoots – up to ten per plant if you are lucky.