Dave Smith expounded:

I'm a complete novice gardener and i'm having trouble with some flowers.
They grew up straight and tall and had beautiful flowers on top, but
then they flopped over and started growing into a messy tangle. I didn't
know what to do so today I used string to hold them up but it doesn't
look very nice. I'm sure there is a better way to handle this. You can
see the pictures of my problem at the following link. Clicking on the
picture will enlarge it.

http://homepage.mac.com/davecalhoun/PhotoAlbum51.html

Thank you for any advice you are able to offer.

As Greg has told you, your problem is your plants are growing in
too-rich soil, in the wild they'd be growing in much leaner soil and
would stand on their own.

He is also right that the stems will break easily, but since these are
annual flowers that are intent on setting seed, if you cut them back
they'll regrow new flowers (this is why we deadhead annuals, keep them
from setting seed, they'll keep trying with new flowers). So go ahead
and put supports around them and don't worry too much about breaking
them.

--
Ann, Gardening in zone 6a
Just south of Boston, MA
********************************