I’m sorry to hear these tales of things not coming back.
SeaRabbit, it was the end of a long day when I read your post, and it took me a couple of minutes to realise (with the help of google) that fox and cubs is the name of a plant. And that the cuckoo was a metaphorical one only!
I looked up that Carol Klein article again, and I can see why it made me think knautia was an exception to the general rule of deadheading:
“In most cases, gardening experts advocate dead-heading to prolong summer flowering. However, in the case of Knautia macedonica this is both unnecessary and unwise. The seed heads actually enhance the look of it and provide food for birds.”
But reading again, I can see she must mean to stop before the very last possible flower, as you both suggest. So that is what I shall do.
It’s been a slow gardening week for me. I work and commute most days, so once we get past the longest day there is an ever-decreasing window of opportunity between wrangling DCs into bed and it getting too dark to see what I’m doing.
The knautia has been deadheaded, and new flowers are starting to spring forth. I am also very happy with yellow cosmos Xanthos and helianthus Italian white (small multi-flowered sunflowers), both of which I raised from seed this year.
I think when you have small DCs there is a slight obsession with introducing them to the joy of gardening by growing monster sunflowers, so year after year seedlings kept coming home from pre-school and whatnot, but they always ended up tatty and mildewed, leaning over despite my efforts with canes and string, and generally not joyful at all. I was just glad every year when they finished and I could get rid. So my small/branching sunflowers have restored my faith. So pretty! I thought I was growing them as quick space-fillers while my perennials are still small, but I would definitely make time/space for them again.
To balance that small triumph, my small disappointment this year is ridolfia segetum, which I also raised from seed. The seedlings were unbelievably tiny and spindly, and I ended up with about three that survived to plant out, and although they have just produced flowers in fabulous acid yellow, the plants themselves are still really small. But they are supposed to flower until October and even self-seed, so maybe I shouldn’t write them off too soon? It’s just been so painfully slow up to this point.