I love cleome. I have the 'Queen' series which get really tall, usually over 5ft. I have a mixture of colors too. Were your friend's cleome tall too? When mine get to around 4 ft, I will start deadheading some. I have several plants and I don't do them all at once...just here and there. The first few years I had them, I didn't deadhead. They branched out and they did get a lot of flowers. So don't worry, they will branch out even without deadheading. I started deadheading them and they branched out more. Myself, I like the looks of them better when I deadhead, but that's up to you. Their stems will have thorns on them, so be careful! I'm including a pic of the 1st hear I had them, in 2002. It does not do them justice. They were much better looking than that. The 1st ones I had were light pink ones that faded to white. I loved them. I've tried different colors since then. I don't have them by my deck anymore, they're next to our driveway. I have tall plastic stakes to tie them too. We can have some nasty storms so I want to make sure they don't break.
Btw, these really reseed! Even after I stopped growing them in my deck garden, I still had some come up for 2 or 3 yrs afterwards. You can just pull them out or turn the ground over where you don't want them.
Enjoy!
{{gwi:17799}}

Kat

Thanks Karen. So do you recall yours being the most frost tolerant plant?

I think, my friend's cleome when I saw it was between 30-40 inches tall and that was late September.

You can see cleome here taken July 6. It's somewhere at the end.

I'm not sure what type I have. Looks like there is only 3 types.

Here is a link that might be useful: Few pics for July

You can see cleome here taken July 6.

should have been

You can see my cleome plant here taken July 6.

Nice pictures. I can't add much to what Kat said, it's about how I do mine. I also like the tall ones, and mine aren't all that tall yet, but they'll get there by summer's end. Be sure to harvest some seed when they ripen. They're known for self-sowing, but the first year I depended on them doing it, they didn't.

Beautiful pics Neil. Your cleome plants look very healthy. Yours look like the same kind as I had the first few years...they open pink, then fade to white. I really liked having different colors on one plant. We go on vacation every year for the last 2 wks in July. When we come home in early August, they have really grown. Mine have flowered thru Sept. at least. I don't remember how the frost affects them though. We usually don't get one until mid Oct. or later. But they are one of the longest blooming annuals I have in my gardens.

Kat

Wow, gorgeous pics!