These are our lovely Hot Chili Amaranth plants. Aren't they gorgeous!? They haven't even made the flower/seed heads yet, but just the leaves are beautiful. I liked this view of them too--like I was a little mouse. :)
Like many things out in the flower field, these amaranths are ready to be cut-back. By cutting off the tops of these plants, the plant will send out side shoots and rather than grow one ginormous head, it will grow several smaller, more useable heads. Win!
I'll post some update pictures later on. Admittedly, whenever I've grown these before for my own personal use, I haven't cut them back and just let them grow large and glorious! I've also noticed that when I grow them really close together the heads remain small too, so that's something that'd be fun to really experiment with side-by-side: given a little space, do you grow more if you just pack them super close together or if you space them and pinch them back so they can branch out? And which helps with the weeds better?
LOTS of flowers benefit from pinching. They'll be bushier, more aesthetically pleasing, more prolific, AND better for cut flower use. If you have these growing in your yard, consider pinching the tops off, leaving about 3 sets of stems attached to the root. Here are some examples:
Argeratum
Amaranth
Basil
Calendula
Celosia
Dianthus
Dahlias
Dusty Miller
Godetia
Marigold
Sunflowers (only the branching kind)
Snapdragons
Sweet Peas
Zinnias
Give it a try--pinch half of yours and then compare what happens. :)