Last June I received a pink dianthus plant for my birthday. I love this plant. The tiny pink flowers smell like candy and have a sweet and bitter taste.
I planted it next to some lavender and it has more than quadrupled in size. Sadly, the flowers bloomed just before a couple of weeks of heavy wind and rain. Before long, the pretty pink blossoms were looking toppled, trampled, and frazzled. I needed to do something, but I was afraid. The urge to grow more and bigger is always there, so the thought of cutting the dianthus back just felt so wrong. In the end, I realized that a cleanly trimmed dianthus looks better (and is probably healthier) than a frazzled one. I’ve even read that you can get it to bloom again by cutting back.
Leaving plenty of room for the lavender and fragrant fresh-cut flowers for the bathroom.
This is the year of lettuce. After sowing a few varieties thickly, I’ve been slowly creating rows as I harvest. I get to enjoy them at every stage and it makes room for the rest to grow. Yesterday I started some carrots in the new rows. I’ll let some of the lettuce bolt and collect the seeds in the fall.
And the strawberries are here!
Well Fed Naima 
Very nice post
How beautiful your garden and how beautiful your photos. Thanks for taking the time to share them with everyone.
I don’t know if it will help your “perception” of cutting plants back. Please remember that in natural ecosystems plants are cut back by predation. Animals *eat* them; so they have evolved to respond positively to being “cut back.” Domesticated plants often suffer because of lack of predation (pinching back). Maybe if you rewrite your role in your garden ecosystem from “gardener” or “viewer” to “mild-mannered predator” it will counter the counterproductive intuition you have that chopping your plants back “just seems wrong.” It is ecologically “right.” FWIW. Cheers!
Yes, that makes so much sense!