Do I need to pluck off the tops of my sweet peas to improve their growth?

My mum told me that I need to pinch of the tips of my sweet pea plants in order to improve their flowering later. Is this right? If so, how much do I pluck off? thanks!

Do I need to pluck off the tops of my sweet peas to improve their growth?
As mentioned, plucking off the tip help the plant to make more side shoots (branches out) and thus one plant will cover a larger section of fence. To keep the plant flowering as long as possible, even up to the first frost, you have to keep snipping off flowers for the vase, and all bits of flowers that have finished flowering. If you let the flowered bits become seeds, then the plant will not last the whole summer. The whole idea of a plant flowering, is so that the plant can make seeds to reproduce itself. If you keep on removing the seeds then the plant will continuously make new flowers for its reproduction. If you want to keep a few seed for next year´s so wings, it´s wise to tie a bit of wool around the stem of a special colour to remind yourself not to cut it off.
Reply:Yes. And pick the flowers when they come to encourage lots more to grow.
Reply:Yes to encourage flowers pluck of the top leader
Reply:plucking and pinching are two different things ... to get more flowers you need to "pinch" out the growing tips ... after you have got 3 true pairs of leaves pinch out the growing tip ... then once they start flowering you need to pick the flowers daily ... so the plants don't stop producing flowers
Reply:Some clever varieties are naturally dwarf and bushy, pinching out is not required. With the standard tall growing Spencer varieties you can nip out the growing tips at 2 full leaves.
Reply:If you pluck to the tops, you will encourage the side growth, this will delay the full top growth It will not affect the timing of flowering, which will be more since the side growth will have more buds. this is usually done on mums to have more flowers. It is call heading.
Reply:No need as that just makes them bushier. What you need to do is to remove all the flowers as they die. Once they set seed then they will stop flowering if the seed pods are allowed to develop.
Reply:If you remove the growing tips at the top of a plant it causes it to bush out so once you've established a good height spread you could do this to give more horizontal growth and hopefully lots more flowers :)
Reply:2 points for me