I recently bought 5 Sentimental Blue Balloon Flower plants from my local nursery. They were loaded with flowers when I bought them. I have been deadheading dead flowers on a daily basis, but there are very few new buds coming in to replace the deadheaded blooms. It has now gotten to the point where there are very few flowers left. I have tried cutting them off right at the base of the flower and I have tried cutting them off where the flower's stem meets the main plant stem--neither of these methods were successful. Many times, when I snip right at the base of the dead flower, the tiny stem section that remains begins to turn yellow and slowly die back to the main stem, but sometimes a new bud will begin to form while the stem is dying. Then, the stem dies off before the new bud has a chance to develop.

Is there some sort of trick to deadheading these plants? I keep reading that they will continue to bloom all summer as long as they are continuously deadheaded, but I have had no luck at all.

I am new to gardening, so maybe I am missing something.