One way to get more flowers is to grow sterile plants that fail to set seed (due to pollen incompatibilities between parents). They bloom for months, but still attract bees. Geraniums ‘Patricia’, ‘Orion’, ‘Nimbus’, ‘Spinners’, ‘Blue Cloud’, ‘Ivan’, ‘Nicola’ and ‘Joy’ all bloom for weeks.
The plant man’s preference has a large reach. Other excellent sterile perennials include Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ and the crisp Rudbeckia fulgida var. deamii, which produces tawny daisies from August.
Deadheading
A plant doesn’t have to be sterile to perform for months, because deadheading has the same effect: it prevents seeds from forming. Kitchen scissors, or pinching between finger and thumb, is faster and easier than pruning shears.
Annual cornflowers, Scabiosa atropurpurea, large French marigolds, cosmos and calendulas go on and on. Red valerian (Centranthus ruber and the mauve C. lecoqii) can also keep you blooming for months after it’s dead. If your valerian is getting shabby, push it back to the base in the summer for later blooms.
A rose tip or two
Deadhead reblooming roses to promote more blooms. Just grab the top of the flower and twist it, just below the bud, with your fingers.
All the thick stems that need pruning shears, make an angled cut down and away from you, rather than a straight one, and you’ll only see the tip. The shake test is invaluable here, as it is sometimes difficult to tell which flowers are over. So it is with peonies.
Exceptions to the rule
There are some seed heads you’ll want to keep: herbaceous clematis, such as C. integrifolia ‘Ozawa’s Blue’, creep through summer borders and their thickly-pinched, blue pagoda-like flowers eventually turn into pale silk spiders.
Deciduous eryngium flower heads can also change color nicely, although they must be removed in wet summers because they turn rusty brown. Go on instinct.