need help with flopped over flowers

[Dave Smith]

I'm a complete novice gardener and i'm having trouble with some flowers. They grew up straight and tall and had beautiful flowers on top, but then they flopped over and started growing into a messy tangle. I didn't know what to do so today I used string to hold them up but it doesn't look very nice. I'm sure there is a better way to handle this. You can see the pictures of my problem at the following link. Clicking on the picture will enlarge it.

you for any advice you are able to offer.

Dave

[gregpresley]

[Ann]

Dave Smith expounded:

As Greg has told you, your problem is your plants are growing in too-rich soil, in the wild they'd be growing in much leaner soil and would stand on their own.

He is also right that the stems will break easily, but since these are annual flowers that are intent on setting seed, if you cut them back they'll regrow new flowers (this is why we deadhead annuals, keep them from setting seed, they'll keep trying with new flowers). So go ahead and put supports around them and don't worry too much about breaking them.

[Lee]

Will drastic cutting back help Shasta Daisies, too? i've never ben able to get strong stems on shastas, but ever so often try again Lee h

[gregpresley]