flowers

Question

Last year I bought a bag of Pennington brand mixed flower seeds. I don’t quite remember which variety of flowers the bag was supposed to contain, but it grew some amazing flowers as you can see in the attached photos. Also bot sure if these flowers are annuals or perennials (the bag indicated it was a mix of both). I planted the flowers in-front of a war memorial at my church in order to replace the assortment of unwanted weeds and crabgrass that was growing there previously. The flowers grew tall, robust and healthy. The only problem is that the flowers grew slightly too tall. Many of the names listed on the war memorial were blocked by the flowers. I planted the same flower seeds again this year. My question is whether or not I could cut the tops off the flowers early on, before they develop buds in order to keep everything lower to the ground? Would clipping the plant at the top cause it to produce flower buds that are lower to the ground? Or would it cause the plants to produce no flowers at all?

Answer 1

The plant’s height will be controlled, mostly, by genetics and some by environment. Cutting the flowers will allow some of the smaller, lower flowers to develop, but it will be at the cost of the size of the blooms and the number. Overall, this will not hurt the plants, but they will not flower near as prolifically when they are cut short.

Answer 2

Thank you for the reply!