The early morning watering of all the baskets, pots, tubs and half barrels ensures that even in a fortnight of dry weather the flowers keep on blooming.  At the same time as watering I pick off as many dead heads as possible to encourage new buds to open.  Amazingly with the delphiniums, I cut back the old dying shoots and leaves and lo and behold  new leaves and stems grew and delphiniums are just about to emerge with their deep blue heads.  Every time the lupins were trying to turn the flowers into seed pods I picked them off and we got a second showing of pale coloured lupins which are still carrying on valiantly.